The area to the south and west of the Archaearium is abuzz with the scrapes of archaeologists’ shovels and trowels carefully exposing the historic layers beneath their feet. This part of Jamestown has never been excavated and the team is primarily interested in finding the bounds of the burial ground centered on Statehouse Ridge where the Archaearium museum now sits. From 1663 until 1698 a massive three story statehouse and connected auxiliary buildings were built in stages. Decades prior to its construction, the high ground here was used as a burial ground, and the team found dozens of burials during the Statehouse excavations of the early 2000s. After recent excavations in the past few years, the total number of grave shafts found here is up to 132, with at least 139 persons contained within (there have been a few instances of two people buried in the same grave shaft). But where does the burial ground end? Early 20th-century archaeology just outside the northeast wall of the Dale House discovered a burial there. Does the burial ground extend all the way there, clear across Smithfield? This is the main question the team is trying to answer.

These excavations are done with a sense of urgency as Smithfield has become increasingly flood-prone and last year’s burial excavation here revealed human remains that are in exceptionally poor shape — little more than stains in the ground — likely a result of repeated wet/dry cycles. Fellow colonists in even older burials (1607) are in much better shape in the high ground of James Fort, covered by the earthworks of Confederate Fort Pocahontas and thus also protected from rainwater. So there is a desire to learn all we can from these folks before they disappear completely, whether it be from biological anthropologists examining their bones and reading the “story” of their lives embedded therein or by molecular anthropologists discovering relatedness with other colonists, folks in the Old World, or even people from the present.

In an additional major step to learn all we can about the scope of the burial ground and Smithfield more generally, the archaeological team has completed the first five of a planned 21 excavation squares in a north/south line across the area, from just south of the Archaearium to just north of the Dale House. This dig, led by Staff Archaeologist Caitlin Delmas, and employing most of the archaeological staff, is using 5′ x 5′ squares, 75% smaller than the usual 10′ x 10’s, allowing a more rapid course across Smithfield. In the southernmost of the five units, two historic ditches were discovered, cut by modern (1930s) utility lines. These are new ditches to the archaeological record, and they don’t correspond with any known property boundaries. Just as with every other feature at Jamestown, their position will be surveyed and recorded, another piece of the puzzle that can be referenced as Smithfield slowly reveals its secrets. These squares haven’t yielded much in the way of artifacts. An archaic projectile point — over 1000 years old — was found, which speaks to the millennia of use of the island by Virginia Indians. A partial decorative pipe stem made of local (not European) clay was found, as was a wine bottle base. Another partial pipe was found during these excavations, a bowl from a 19th century reed pipe. The team has already backfilled these squares, an indication of the rapidity with which they are marching across the field. Five additional squares in the north/south line will soon go through the same cycle.

Closer to the Archaearium, excavations are proceeding on both sides of the walking path that leads to its entrance. On the east side, the team is following a brick and mortar rubble feature that may be related to one of the instances when the Statehouse complex was destroyed by fire. The running theory is that this was an area where bricks were salvaged, perhaps to rebuild the Statehouse. Plow scars are visible cutting through the rubble but the debris exists below the plow zone as well, suggesting it may be sitting in a cellar or other underground feature. The rubble caps an earlier 17th-century building found last year, with both the east and west walls already discovered. As the team expands north to follow the rubble, they should eventually find this building’s northern wall. As far as dating these features go, the archaeologists are doing a lot of relative dating as no artifacts have as yet been found that can give them a hard date. The building cuts a brick-lined burial, and brick-lined burials weren’t used by the English until the 1650s. Because the building cuts the burial, the building is newer than the burial. And finally, the brick rubble feature caps the building, so it is the newest of the three features. This month a partial wine bottle was found here which form suggests it was made in the 1680s or 1690s.

On the western side of the walkway, excavations continue on two new squares close to the Seawall. No burials have been found here as of yet, but the team has had to contend with a labyrinth of tree roots, evidence of the stately trees flanking the excavations. They have been careful to avoid damaging the roots as much as possible. Last month several artifacts were found here including a horseshoe, a partial Dutch pipe stem, as well as sherds of Portuguese faience, and Frechen and Beauvais stoneware. These excavations have been paused as a combination of rainwater and groundwater has made progress temporarily infeasible.

Dr. David Leslie of TerraSearch Geophysical, a longtime research collaborator with the Jamestown team, was once again on the island this month, this time to help conduct research funded by FEMA to devise a proper drainage system for the Memorial Church and 1680s Church Tower. He brought with him both ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetometry equipment. The drainage project is designed to help preserve the two structures, with the Church Tower being the only 17th-century above-ground structure surviving on the island. But because there are archaeological resources everywhere at Jamestown, drainage can’t be installed without first getting a “lay of the land”, or in this case a “lay of the underground.” Dr. Leslie and Jamestown archaeologists used his powerful tools to add to our knowledge of the churchyard and surrounding area so that we devise a drainage system that will both help preserve the Church structures and make as little of an impact on the archaeological resources as possible. To learn more about magnetometry at Jamestown, please read March 2024’s dig update.

Dr. Leslie also lent his hand to our photographic survey of the Church itself, where Senior Staff Archaeologist Dr. Chuck Durfor and Senior Staff Archaeologist Anna Shackelford are building a 3D spatially-accurate model of the Church and Church Tower also in an effort to help guide the drainage planning. One of the challenges Chuck and Anna have run into in making a photo-realistic model is photographing hard-to-reach places, particularly the sections higher than one can reach on a ladder. One avenue the team has explored is taking the shots with a drone. At present, photographs taken with a drone are not as detailed or true-to-life as those taken with a digital SLR camera, and the two proposed using DSLR shots for the sections below the roofline, accessible to Chuck on a ladder, and drone shots for the roof and higher portions of the Tower. Chuck and Anna discovered that there were just too many differences in the results to believably blend the two sets of shots. They’ve taken the direction of exclusively using the drone shots, but Dr. Leslie suggested we try a method he’s had success with on past projects, attaching a cell phone to a long pole, letting its camera take shots as needed via photo-stitching software. Chuck and Anna are in the process of evaluating the results.

As part of the “Save Jamestown” campaign to save the island and its archaeological resources from a rising James River, our staff is planning to raise the walkways that allow our staff and visitors reach the various buildings and attractions on the island. The pathways will be paved with a stone aggregate that requires a thick rock foundation. Our archaeological team is using a backhoe to sample the full depth of the current gravel pathway to see if it’s adequate to serve as the aggregate’s foundation. Preliminary findings indicate that the existing path’s rock cover is too shallow in many places and will need to be augmented prior to the installation of the aggregate.

Jamestown was happy to host Jeremy Sanchez’s English class from Surry County High School for some hands-on archaeology. Surry County is just across the James River from Jamestown, with some of our staff taking the Jamestown-Scotland Ferry every morning as part of their commute into work. Senior Staff Archaeologist Mary Anna Hartley is one of those, having grown up in Surry County and having a keen interest in her home county’s history, she was a natural lead for a project investigating the history of Jamestown during the Civil War, during which hundreds of enslaved persons freed themselves by boating or swimming across the river from Surry County to Union-held Jamestown Island. The Union’s practice of treating escaped enslaved persons as contraband of war — effectively meaning they wouldn’t be giving them back — had the effects of freeing thousands of enslaved persons close or behind Union lines (and putting them to work helping the Union war effort) and further stressing the Confederate homefront.

Mr. Sanchez’s students were given instruction in shoveling, troweling, screening and use of one of Jamestown’s ground-penetrating radar (GPR) machines. They then went to work in two areas of Jamestown, one being the excavations just southwest of the Archaearium, and the other on the eastern edge of Smithfield where GPR revealed the presence of several square features. These squares line up where quarters for the Bedford Artillery are represented on a Civil War map of Jamestown Island held in the collections of William & Mary’s Swam Library. These quarters may be tents, or subsequent barracks built for the soldiers. When the Union captured the island in 1862, they repurposed the barracks as housing for the escaped enslaved persons mentioned previously, many of whom came from Surry County. Luckily the area was relatively dry and the students made good progress there and across the field near the Archaearium.

This month, two new storage and display cabinets were installed in the Vault. The cabinets will house large, mended artifacts that didn’t fit well in our existing storage cabinets, and were hard to see and access easily. The curatorial team has just started to fill the new cabinet with large ceramic vessels such as olive jars and butter pots, making more space for smaller objects in the existing storage cabinets. The ability to safely house and display some of the largest ceramic and glass vessels is exciting, making these amazing artifacts a highlight of the vault!

Curatorial intern Lindsay Bliss, while picking through objects from James Fort’s first well (the “John Smith Well”), found a piece of iron brigandine armor, complete with rivets. This is another of many such pieces found in the well. Jamestown’s wells were often used as trash pits once their water became unpalatable, and this well is no different. Once conserved, this piece will join the other brigandine pieces in the Dry Room, where temperature and humidity are tightly controlled to inhibit corrosion (iron oxide AKA rust).

Assistant Curator Lauren Stephens continues to work with Senior Staff Archaeologist Mary Anna Hartley and Senior Staff Archaeologist Anna Shackelford to analyze architectural materials from different locations and times at Jamestown. Of note this month is a piece of white exterior plaster from the 1617 church, discovered in a burial shaft during excavations in the Memorial Church in 2018. On the reverse of the plaster is a protruding “X” shape from where the plaster filled in scoring on the rougher brown coat of plaster it was pressed against. The scoring was designed to produce exactly this effect on the white plaster, helping it stay in place.

Dr. Chris Wilkins is conserving a series of artifacts comprised of round copper alloy ornaments set in leather. These are notable for the existence of a small amount of leather, likely surviving due to their proximity to the copper, an element lethal to the bacteria that typically consumes leather and other biological material. Archaeologists at Jamestown have found many other examples of biological materials that have survived due to their closeness to copper, including portions of a woven Virginia Indian reed mat. The artifacts Chris is conserving are likely portions of horse furniture, the gear used on a horse for either riding or use as a draft animal. Chris is mechanically removing the overburden — the soil covering the artifacts — and then will use a consolidant on the leather portions to prevent them from deteriorating further.

This month Associate Curator/Bioarchaeologist Emma Derry and Assistant Curator/Zooarchaeologist Magen Hodapp attended the annual Society for American Archaeology (SAA) conference in Denver. The annual SAA conference is one of the largest archaeological conferences in the country, making it a great opportunity to network and present on recent research.

Emma, in a session about mortuary bioarchaeology in the southeast, gave a talk about the large burial ground on the Statehouse Ridge. She discussed the previous excavations done between 2000 and 2004, patterns relating to demographics, alignments with the ridge, coffins, and grave artifacts. The presentation concluded by presenting on the most recent burial excavation of the site from last fall and general preservation concerns given recent flooding. Magen, in a session focused on historical archaeology in the southeast, presented on the current work sorting the animal remains from the First Well. It included the methods employed for sorting such a large faunal assemblage, the organizational limitations of working in a shared space, and some preliminary identifications, mostly notably the iguana remains.

In addition to presenting, Emma and Magen were able to attend other presentations and see research posters about such topics as zooarchaeological isotope research, international mortuary excavations, working under new NAGPRA policies, and current museum projects, among others. Every SAA conference is different, and with 4 full days of presentations, attending is a great opportunity for our curators to stay up-to-date with current archaeology!

Emma and Magen also visited History Colorado in downtown Denver, an institution that Jamestown Rediscovery will soon be loaning artifacts to. Several tobacco pipes and grenade fragments will be loaned as part of a future History Colorado exhibit, entitled “Moments that Made US.” This exhibit, part of the America 250 and Colorado 150 celebrations, will bring together artifacts from across America that connect to notable events in US history.

related images

Dig Update Archive, 2004-present

April 30, 2025. Dr. Chris Wilkins, Senior Conservator.

The general role of an archaeological conservator is to stop degradation and corrosion of artifacts as archaeologists unearth them. It is crucial for conservators to have an understanding of the degradation and corrosion process of various types of materials. In this sense, a conservator is also a materials scientist who focuses on historical materials.

At Jamestown Rediscovery, we’ve been focusing on glass objects recovered from our excavations. This focus is the result of conservation of recently-excavated glass from Jamestown, conservation of several glass bottles recovered from excavations at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and the ongoing care and management of the Jamestown glass collections (see “In conservation, this will probably be the hardest thing you ever do.” | Historic Jamestowne; Fig. 1).

To conserve a glass artifact, a conservator needs to know the process of glass production, its general history, and glass degradation/decomposition. Additionally, the conservator and responsible party (e.g. curator, stakeholder, and/or owner) consult in the proper storage of glass based on its recovery and condition. There are different types of glasses, let us explore one.   

Glass Production

Alkali glasses are the most abundant glass type throughout history. The production of these glasses requires at least three components: silicon, alkali (sodium and/or potassium), and calcium. Glass is actually mostly silica, so why do we need these other elements?

Melting pure silica sand will produce a stable glass called fused silica glass. However, the melting point of silica is 1713°C (3115°F), a difficult temperature to reach in both kilns from the past and most kilns today.

An alkali fluxing agent is required to reduce the melting point to a more kiln-acceptable level of 800-1000°C (1472-1832°F) for softening or 1400-1600°C (2552-2912°F) for a true melt. The fluxing agent also lowers the viscosity of the glass melt, making it easier to work and form. Glasses made with fluxing agents, like sodium, are known as alkali glass. However, pure silica-sodium glass is unstable and will quickly dissolve in water or become crizzled (intact highly fractured glass) over time. The introduction of calcium oxide to the mixture counters this by stabilizing the glass, if included in appropriate amounts. Adding other materials to the glass mixture allows for manipulation of opacity and color. 

A Brief History of Glass

Pliny the Elder (d. A.D. 79 at Pompeii) recounts a story of the discovery of glass by natron traders landing on the shores near the colony of Ptolemais at the mouth of the River Belus in present-day Israel (Natural History XXXVI:192). Not finding any stones to support their cookware, they used natron blocks from their stores and, under the heat of the fire, a molten glass formed beneath. Reflecting on the components of a glass mentioned in the preceding paragraph, upon the sandy, presumably shelly, beaches, this mixture of sand (silica), natron (sodium), wood ash (sodium/potassium) and shell (calcium), could have produced an unintended glass (Gorem-Rosen 2000).

However, the manufacture of glass certainly predates Pliny, with evidence of it having occurred as early as 3500 BCE in the Near East (Pfeander 1996) if not earlier in other places like Mycenae, China, and North Tyrol. A clay tablet recovered from the library of the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal (696-626 BCE) provides a glass recipe and states that glass can be produced from ‘60 parts sand, 180 parts ashes of sea plants, 5 parts chalke’ equating to 25% sand (silica), 74% ash (sodium oxide and potassium oxide) and 2% chalk (calcium oxide) (tablet | British Museum). While the ingredients for glass (silica, sodium/potassium, calcium respectively) are good, the quantities provided would not produce a good quality glass.

Glass is a conservative technology with very little change over long periods. Analysis of clear and colored Roman glass from across the empire revealed compositions of largely silica (SiO₂), with some sodium, potassium and calcium oxides (Na₂O, K₂O and CaO), with additional inclusions for color, opacity and incidentals (Ganio et al. 2012 ). The composition of typical 17th-century English alkali glass is similar (Dungworth and Brain 2009). Totaling the alkalis reveals little significant difference between Roman and English glass despite a separation of 1600 years!

Glass Degradation

The degradation of glass is dependent on its composition and the environment. Modern fused silica glass is an extremely stable material. Most archaeological glass, however, is alkali glass. Alkali glass can become crizzled and could eventually fall apart if the amount of calcium originally added to the mixture during production is not appropriate for glass stabilization, although this is more common with historical glass than archaeological glass.

Archaeological glass is susceptible to two competing degradation processes involving water: dealkalization and network dissolution (Freestone 2001). Dealkalization simply means removing alkalis (sodium or potassium). Water will leach the alkali and some calcium from the glass structure replacing it with smaller hydrogen atoms from the water. The replacement of larger atoms with smaller atoms forces the contraction of the affected layers. This contraction causes the layers to partially separate from the pristine glass below and eventually flake off (Fig. 2). Known as ‘gel’ layers, they will expand and contract depending on the presence of moisture much like a true gel. Each layer, as seen by the naked eye, is actually several layers. Refraction of light passing through them can make them appear iridescent or avariation of dull opaque browns. Loss of these layers results in a loss of the original dimensionality of the object as well as any inscriptions and adornments connected to that surface.

Network dissolution is the removal of silica, the main component of glass. Ground water generally has a pH of 7. Dealkalization leaches sodium from the glass into the surrounding ground water causing the pH to increase.

If the pH goes above 9.5, network dissolution becomes dominant over dealkalization. For instance, if rainfall rinses away the water, the pH never becomes critical. If stagnant, the higher-pH water causes network dissolution, or the loss of silica, which results in pitted glass and/or general surface erosion and a generally weaker glass object. A glass object where significant network dissolution has occurred may appear intact in-situ but can fall apart upon simple handling.  

Glass Conservation

The condition of the glass determines the conservation that has to occur to save the object. If glass is wet, or ‘waterlogged’, and has gel layers due to dealkalization, it has to be control-dried to ensure the gel layers do not flake away from the object. Placing the glass into successive water baths with increasing concentrations of ethanol and letting the glass dry afterwards will result in less loss.

Glass recovered from Jamestown is not usually waterlogged but does have soil ‘adhered’ to it. Uncontrolled removal of the dirt by a conservator can pull away the gel layers or even larger fragments of glass revealing pristine glass located a few millimeters below the original surface. While ‘pristine glass’ may sound ideal, removal of the gel layers results in the loss of anything that was on the original glass surface, like inscriptions, as well as a loss in dimensionality. A dilute adhesive applied to the adhered soil and glass locks the gel layers into place and allows the conservator to control the removal of dirt from the surface. At Jamestown, we use a mixture of B-72 and acetone. Using a scalpel and/or solvent-impregnated cotton buds, mechanical cleaning occurs centimeter-by-centimeter across the surface to expose the glass and gel layers (Fig 3, also see Fig. 1). 

Once the glass is cleaned, application of a final consolidation layer in the form of a dilute adhesive produces a glassy finish while protecting the gel layers. Adhesive between the gel layers decreases light refraction, causing the colors on the surface to appear muted.

Glass Storage

The condition of the glass when excavated also determines the way it should be stored. Glass found in the desert or as a part of an historic collection is best placed in a dry environment. This kind of glass can survive in very low relative humidity. Glass recovered from archaeological excavations in wetter environments, like Jamestown, could still have molecule-thick layers of water in crevices and between gel layers, even if the glass appears dry. Placing this glass into a dry storage location could cause the gel layers to flake off as the water evaporates. A relative humidity of 45-50% (as found in your typical household) is ideal for archaeological glass. At a higher relative humidity, moisture could collect on the glass surface restarting the dealkalization process and further degrading the object.

Mechanical damage is an immediate concern when handling glass, archaeological or otherwise. Knocking a cannonball off a worktable will make a large sound, and at worse, break a toe. Dropping a glass object from the same height will likely cause it to shatter with potential loss of shards and possible cuts to the person trying to retrieve it quickly. Placing the glass into housings (e.g. bag or box) while in storage helps to protect the object from mechanical damage. If the box is dropped and the object breaks, the shards are contained with no loss and can be handled when time allows. A simple labeled box, with supports for the object inside, placed securely on the storage shelf and tracked through a database ensures a higher probability that the object will remain intact and available for the future. Boxes can be dismissed if specialized cabinets are used. These usually have multiple removable, adjustable shelves and, sometimes, a glass front but still serve to protect the contents within from mechanical damage (Fig. 4) and buffers changes in temperature and relative humidity.

In Conclusion

Next time you have a sip of iced tea or hot coffee from a glass, think of the 5000 years of glass history and innovation that went into it. Think of how we, as humans, thought to crush sand and shell, and combine it with ashes of wood and plants, and/or natural salt deposits to produce a material that can be transparent or opaque and any number of colors. A material that is both strong yet fragile, but where simple exposure to water coupled with an extent of time can pull it apart atom by atom. And think of us, preserving this glass against the will of physics and nature so that those in the future can learn about and see the beauty of the past.

References Cited:

Dungworth, D. and Brain, C. (2009).  Late 17th–Century Crystal Glass: An Analytical Investigation. Journal of Glass Studies 51

Freestone, I. (2001). Post-Depositional Changes in Archaeological Ceramics and Glass. Handbook of Archaeological Sciences. D. R. Brothwell and A. M. Pollard, John Wiley & Sons: 615-625

Ganio, M., S. Boyen, T. Fenn, R. Scott, S. Vanhoutte, D. Gimingo and P. Degryse (2012). Roman Glass Across the Empire: An Elemental and Isotopic Characterization. Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry 5

Gorin-Rosen Y. (2000). The Ancient Glass Industry in Isreal, Summary of the Find and New Discoveries. In M.D. Nenna, La route du verre: Ateliers primaires at secondairs du second millénaire av. J.-C. au Moyen Âge (Travaux de la maison de l’Orient Méditeranéen 33). Lyon. Pp. 49-63

Pfaender, H.G. (1996). The History of Glass. Schott Guide to Glass. Dordrecht, Springer Netherlands: 1-15

The archaeology team is welcoming the onset of spring and the opportunity to get back outside. They have resumed their excavations close to the Archaearium, working both just south of the museum and opening new squares closer to the river, on the other side of the walking path. The same goals remain as when these excavations were paused for the winter…find the bounds of the burial ground centered on Statehouse Ridge, explore and follow the 17th-century features found south of the Archaearium, and more generally explore this part of Jamestown, inside and on the fringes of Smithfield, where no archaeology has been conducted before. To that end, this month the team surveyed the line of 5′ x 5′ squares that will be excavated in the next few months in a north/south line straight across Smithfield from the Archaearium to the Dale House. Will more burials turn up? Did the colonists construct buildings in this area? The team is eager to investigate this area as it has become increasingly flood-prone. If there are features here, they want to find and study them before the floods damage them further. In the new excavations southwest of the Archaearium a horseshoe, Frechen stoneware, Portuguese faience, and an ornate pipe stem are among the finds this month.

On the southeast edge of Smithfield, the ground stayed dry long enough at the artillery barracks site for the team to make progress on the excavations there. Staff Archaeologists Caitlin Delmas and Gabriel Brown picked up where the team left off last season in an on-again/off-again project that is at the mercy of the weather and tides. They were unable to make much progress before the excavations were again put on hold due to soil saturation. A series of square features found here by a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey are in approximately the right location to be Confederate barracks featured on a Civil War map of Jamestown Island. These same barracks were later used by Union soldiers to house enslaved people who escaped to the island in order to free themselves after the Union captured it in 1862.

In the Vault, the curatorial team has started work on the Reference Collection for geological materials. There are at least 100 different stone types in the collection, and each type will be represented by at least one artifact in one of the Vault cabinets. The curators will collaborate with geologists from William & Mary to further identify and source the various types of stones that have been found on the site. Determining where the rocks came from is of special interest to us, as we already know that a number of stones were brought to Jamestown from England and elsewhere as ballast, and were either discarded or used as architectural building material on the site.

Perhaps the most well known example of foreign rocks at Jamestown is the multitude of Bermuda limestone that our archaeologists have found on the site. The Sea Venture, one ship of nine sent with 600 passengers to resupply the struggling Jamestown colony in 1609 was shipwrecked on Bermuda by a hurricane. During their months-long stay there, they built two ships to continue their journey to Virginia, likely laden with Bermuda limestone as ship’s ballast. This was the first time that colonists bound for Jamestown arrived in Bermuda first, so the presence of the stone in a sealed (undisturbed) archaeological context provides a nice terminus post quem (TPQ…a Latin phrase used in archaeology meaning the earliest possible date) for that context of May 1610, the month the shipwrecked colonists arrived in Virginia.

In February of last year geologists from William & Mary began analyzing stones found in the bottom of the Governor’s Well (late 1610s). Their preliminary findings indicate the stones originate from southern England and they are currently working to narrow this down even further. For photos and a bit more info on the collaboration with William & Mary, read February 2024’s dig update. Another example of the Jamestown team working with outside experts to determine the origin of stone can be seen in the effort to source the Knight’s Tombstone, prominently placed in the colony’s second church (c.1617 to c.1639). A wide variety of laboratory tests were conducted to identify the stone’s source, even including the study of fossils found in thin section samples of the tombstone. The analysis was performed by Dr. Marcus M. Key of Dickinson College and Rebecca K. Rossi of California Geological Survey. Their methods and results can be read here.

Dr. Eva Johanna Holmberg of the University of Helsinki visited Jamestown this month to study the medical tools in the collection as part of her research into the experience of bodily pain in the colony. Her examination of these artifacts, currently held in the Vault and on display in the Archaearium museum, complements her study of primary source materials. The research centers on the experiences of three leaders of the colony, George Percy, Captain John Smith, and Thomas West, Lord de la Warr. This research is part of a broader project entitled ‘Experiencing Agony: Pain and Embodiment in the British Atlantic World, 1600-1900’. You can read more about Dr. Holmberg’s research here.

Much progress was made on artifacts related to horses this month, building towards choosing which items will be represented in the Reference Collection. Sara Rivers-Cofield, Curator of Federal Collections of the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab, visited Jamestown in 2021, to analyze the collection of horse furniture and spurs as part of her ongoing research. Ms. Rivers-Cofield took photos and measurements of horse-related artifacts including bridle and saddle parts, bits, horseshoes, spurs, and decorative ornaments that adorned various parts of a horse’s tack. Now that her analysis is wrapping up, Associate Curator Janene has begun entering the data and photos that were taken into our database. This month, she finished updating the database records for metal leather ornaments, and volunteers rebagged each artifact with a paper tag containing the artifact’s context and other identifying information. Next, Janene will incorporate any leather ornaments that were not part of the initial study into both our database and Ms. Rivers-Cofield’s dataset.

This month members of the archaeology and curatorial teams joined volunteers in picking through material excavated from excavations near the Seawall in 2021. Archaeological Field Technicians Hannah Barch and Josh Barber found striped seed beads while picking through material from a midden near the eastern bulwark. Several seed beads have been found in this material, and this month a number of small lead shot, pipe fragments, and a copper tack have been found as well. These artifacts will be cataloged in our collections database and the data will accompany dig reports currently being written about those features.

Processing continues on material excavated from the fort’s first well, discovered in the center of James Fort in 2006. Assistant Curator Magen Hodapp, our resident zooarchaeological expert, is working through layer “H” of the well and is sorting bones into broad categories such as “fish” and “mammals”. She will then further categorize them as much as possible before handing the bones over to outside experts for further classification. Curatorial Intern Lindsay Bliss is picking through material from this feature, also referred to as the John Smith Well because it was constructed during his leadership either in late 1608 or early 1609. Lindsay’s efforts this month have yielded aglets and animal bones.

This month while sorting material from excavations just south of the Archaearium, a volunteer alerted the curators to a hollow stem fragment of a wine glass! The piece is one of three belonging to the same vessel and was designed by John Greene of the London Glass Seller’s Company. This type of wine glass was produced in Venice until 1666 and then in London from 1667-1673. Another very similar vessel was found during earlier excavations.

Work on the Hessian Refractory crucibles is wrapping up. Assistant Curator Lauren Stephens is working on adhering the last mendable sherds found by Senior Curator Leah Stricker. The material used to mend ceramics is an acrylic resin called Paraloid B-72. It is dissolvable in acetone, which means that it can be made in varying levels of stickiness and used on different types of artifacts.

One vessel in particular has really taken shape since the crucible reference collection project began last year, from just a few sherds attached to a base, to a nearly-complete object. One final sherd that belongs to this vessel was recently identified, meaning that the already-mended crucible must be taken apart in order to fit the last sherd in place, and then all sherds must be re-mended. Critically, B-72 can be removed using acetone, meaning it is reversible to allow mends to be taken apart if needed.

Assistant Conservator Jo Hoppe is preparing ceramics for inclusion in an exhibit to be hosted at Jamestown Settlement entitled “Following the Dragon: Chinese Ming Porcelain in Early Jamestown“. Jo is assessing the condition of all the artifacts slated for the exhibit. This is standard procedure for any part of the collection leaving our control, so that if something were to be damaged its condition prior to the handoff was documented. She is also mending some of the ceramics, using a common household item — painter’s tape — to temporarily hold pieces in place during the process. Jo uses the same reversible adhesive that Lauren is using on the crucibles — Paraloid B-72.

Senior Conservator Dan Gamble continues his research into book hardware, metal pieces used to support, decorate, and keep books closed. Because the pages of books in this period were made out of animal skin that would expand when exposed to moisture in the air, the books they were a part of expanded with them. Latches, catches, corner pieces, and purely decorative pieces are among the artifacts in the Jamestown collection. One avenue of Dan’s research is an attempt to determine where book hardware (and thus perhaps the book) originates from by determining its chemical composition. All of the hardware is made of copper alloy but the type of non-copper elements and their proportions may give clues to the hardware’s origin. The team has decided to use pXRF to determine the hardware’s chemical makeup. pXRF is a non-destructive process in which X-rays are emitted at an object and the elements comprising the object emit a unique response in return, allowing their identification. But before this test can be done, Dan is removing the protective coating (Paraloid B-72) on the hardware using acetone so that the coating itself isn’t interpreted as part of the object’s composition. We’ll give the findings of these tests in a future dig update.

Senior Staff Archaeologist Mary Anna Hartley and Staff Archaeologist Natalie Reid attended the Virginia Association of Museums (VAM) Conference in Blacksburg, VA, on March 15-17. They attended sessions led by the descendants of the individuals enslaved on the Rock Spring Plantation, today known as the Reynolds Homestead, and by WWII historians who discussed how their museums struggle with identifying which topics, ideas, and objects to exclude due to lack of space, time, or bandwidth, etc. Natalie attended a session co-presented by our colleague Elyse Werling, Curator of Collections at Preservation Virginia, on textile display and many other fascinating panels. The keynote speaker was Dr. Ashley Spivey, who discussed the history and purpose of the American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act and summarized the updated regulations. Mary Anna and Natalie met with several museum professionals and VAM Board members to discuss some of the challenges we are face from more frequent flooding of areas not yet investigated archaeologically.

Following the VAM Conference, Mary Anna attended the 15th Annual Lemon Project Symposium on March 21st here in Williamsburg. Dedicated to scholarship and activism focusing on the 300-year relationship between African Americans and the College of William & Mary, The Lemon Project: A Journey of Reconciliation symposium featured talks on Black history in our region, community organizing, and descendant representation. Mary Anna had to privilege to attend a panel co-hosted by our colleague Dr. Lisa Winn Bryan, Community Outreach Manager at Preservation Virginia, entitled “Reclaiming Our Story”. One of the presenters was Rev. Dr. James Harrison from Surry County, a good friend of Mary Anna’s since the late 2000s when Dr. Harrison worked with her mother at the Surry Historical Society.

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Dig Update Archive, 2004-present

Excavations continue just to the east of the Godspeed Cottage. Three postholes — likely for a fence — were found approximately 5 feet apart from each other. About 16 feet north of these postholes, another line of four of them exists. The team isn’t sure of their purpose as of yet. They could be related to an orchard that was here early in the 20th century or they may have lined a road or delineated a property. Hopefully future excavations will help give form to these features. Additional GPR surveys are planned for March and then these excavations will be backfilled. A partial Turk’s head pipe was found in these excavations this month. Similar to the George Washington pipe found last October where a human head adorns the bowl, this one was manufactured starting in the 1830s, likely in France. This is the second Turk’s head pipe in the collection, the previous one was found just east of the Memorial Church.

The archaeological team is excited to receive a new controller for their surveying work. The team uses this controller, or “data collector,” to store locational data for archaeological features and excavations. This tool is integral to their field mapping and photogrammetry. The old controllers, while still functional, were beginning to show their age, being nearly 20 years old. The new model has many upgrades that will make the team’s surveying efforts easier. It has a bigger and brighter screen that should make work in direct sunlight much easier. The new controller interfaces directly with computers via USB, while the old ones required discontinued software to connect to a computer, or the use of a flash drive as a go-between. The new controller was a gift of CarolAnn Babcock and Alice Rybicki, mother and daughter, and both long-time benefactors of Jamestown Rediscovery. You can watch the team unbox the new controller on YouTube.

As part of a FEMA grant to develop effective drainage for the Memorial Church and 1680s Church Tower and preserve them for future generations, a surveyor from Vanasse Hangen Brustlin (VHB) came on site to do a survey that was a first step toward creating a detailed topographic map. Working with Director of Archaeology Sean Romo, the two walked the grounds around the church, surveying the churchyard and all adjacent land. The topographic map will be crucial in determining the current hydrology and the best path forward as much of the island is predicted to be underwater by 2075 should current trends continue. In addition to preserving these historic resources, the survey will also help us plan how best to ensure visitor access in the coming decades as the water rises. Though this survey was strictly of the grounds around the Church, the resulting map will be incorporated into the larger geographic data used by the Jamestown team for all of its projects.

In the lab, Archaeological Field Technician Josh Barber found a black glass doublet button while picking through waterscreened material from the north Tower excavations. Its small size suggests it probably was used on a sleeve. The button’s shank is made of iron. This is one of only about 15 of this type and size in the Jamestown collection. This button was probably manufactured in Bavaria, a state in the southeast of modern-day Germany. Josh has also found beads and lead shot in this context. The curatorial and archaeological teams just completed picking through waterscreened material from Ditch 8 and are now working on materials excavated from a midden in 2021 and a portion of the Zuñiga “flag” ditch excavated in 2023.

The curatorial team has entered close to 1000 new artifact records into Jamestown’s database in February. They are currently populating the database with artifacts found in the north field excavations from 2023, the excavations just west and north of the Church Tower, and the western portion of the “flag” ditch. Senior Curator Leah Stricker, Associate Curators Janene Johnson and Emma Derry, and Curatorial Intern Lindsay Bliss have finished picking the heavy fraction of floated soil from Pits 1 and 5, contexts that are included in an analysis identifying the species found in Jamestown’s food waste. Senior Curator Leah Stricker will be picking the light fractions of these features and then the team will move on to picking through materials from Structure 166, a mud-and-stud structure found inside and parallel to the eastern palisade wall of James Fort.

Associate Curator Emma Derry is continuing her work processing artifacts from Pit 1, picking through material caught by a 1mm screen, the smallest screen used by our archaeological team. She’s finding tiny items such as seed beads and straight pins, small bones, gar scales and bits of copper. Curatorial Intern Lindsay Bliss is picking through the heavy fraction of floated material from layer “B” of the John Smith Well. She’s finding beads, copper straight pins, glass, and dozens of clay pipe fragments.

Director of Collections and Conservation Michael Lavin and Senior Conservator Dr. Chris Wilkins went under the Archaearium museum this month to take samples of brick and mortar from the 1660s Statehouse foundation. The Archaearium was built over the Statehouse, lying lightly on the ground with foundations that avoid the archaeological resources underneath. In the museum’s foyer and gift shop there are sections of floor made of glass that allow visitors to see the Statehouse foundations beneath. Michael and Chris accessed the space to take their samples, allowing Senior Staff Archaeologist and Staff Photographer Dr. Chuck Durfor to take photographs of the process through the glass in the museum’s floor. These efforts are part of a new project to sample bricks and mortar from various buildings at Jamestown with fairly tight chronological contexts. These will include the Statehouse, the Governor’s Well, the Blacksmith Shop/Bakery, the Church Tower, and the Kitchen and Cellar. The plan is to use X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) to analyze the brick and determine its chemical makeup. We can then compare the results obtained from the various buildings to see how brickmaking changed from the early fort-period structures (Kitchen and Cellar, Blacksmith Shop/Bakery, Governor’s Well) to the 1660s (Statehouse) to the 1680s (Church Tower). For the mortar, we’ll take thin sections for analysis under a microscope to ascertain the components contained therein. We can then research the evolution of mortar from that used by masons new to Virginia to that used 70 years later. The project is in its infancy so stay tuned.

In the Vault, Senior Curator Leah Stricker is wrapping up her work on Jamestown’s crucible assemblage. She and Collections Assistant Lauren Stephens have been looking for matching sherds among the fragments in the collection and then mending them. When looking for sherds that might be from the same vessel, they look at attributes like color, thickness, fabric inclusions, and residues (or lack of residues) from use. Thanks to their efforts, the minimum number of crucibles is up to 86. Leah often consults with Senior Curator Merry Outlaw, long-time Jamestown employee and ceramics expert, when she is unsure if two sherds might be part of the same vessel — as we sometimes say “four eyes are better than two!”

Conservator Don Warmke has been making good use of the X-ray machine, taking over 400 X-rays in February of recently-cataloged iron objects. Taking X-rays is one of the first steps in the conservation process. Many of these objects are unidentifiable due to being enveloped in corrosion while being underground for 400 years. An X-ray allows the team to “see through” the corrosion, informing their decisions as to whether it makes sense to try to remove it. Many iron objects in the collection have little-to-no original iron left due to the corrosion process and removal attempts might do more harm than good. Additionally, if the X-ray reveals the artifact to be a nail, of which there are thousands in the collection, it doesn’t make sense for the conservators to spend their time working on it. A notable example of Don’s X-ray work this month is the discovery of two similarly-shaped and -sized artifacts, probably two parts of the same object. One part is nondescript, but the other has an intricate decoration which was visible in the X-ray. The team’s best guess is that it is a sword hanger, used to attach the weapon to a soldier’s or gentleman’s belt. Thanks to the X-ray, the object will be slated for conservation after which we may be more certain of its identification.

Assistant Curator Magen Hodapp is now processing layer “H” of the John Smith Well, the fort’s first well. This layer is the third largest in terms of faunal remains in a well that was absolutely full of them. Like other wells at Jamestown, it was used as a trash dump once its water turned foul. This is a wonderful thing for archaeologists as it contains a record of what the colonists were eating in the earliest years of the fort, including the Starving Time. It is believed to have a very short span of being used as a well, and also as a trash heap, showing signs similar to other features at Jamestown believed to have been filled in as a result of Lord De La Warr’s order to cleanse the fort upon his landing there following that calamitous winter. This well-turned-garbage-dump was open for less than two years from late 1608 or early 1609 until the spring of 1610 when Lord De La Warr arrived. It is rare to find such a well-defined beginning and ending date for a feature at Jamestown and it is highly useful in the analysis of the well, its artifacts, and the features nearby.

Several members of the collections and conservation teams attended Colonial Williamsburg’s Annual Antiques Forum this month. The schedule was packed and all of the presentations were excellent, but they especially enjoyed the archaeology highlights. Jamestown’s own Senior Curator Merry Outlaw, along with Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation’s Senior Curator (and former Jamestown Rediscovery Senior Curator) Bly Straube together announced the upcoming publication of a book authored by Merry and a collaborative exhibit entitled Following the Dragon: Chinese Ming Porcelain in Early Jamestown. The exhibit will be open November 15, 2025 – July 12, 2026 at the Jamestown Settlement, with Merry’s book available for purchase both at the exhibit and at Historic Jamestown. This is the culmination of a long career of collaboration together, highlighted by the image of the two preparing for an exhibit at the Virginia Research Center for Archaeology, a former division of the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission (the precursor to today’s Virginia Department of Historic Resources).

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Dig Update Archive, 2004-present

February 27, 2025. Eleanor Robb, Archaeological Field Technician.

Every year, the field crew at Jamestown Rediscovery excavates three burials from the 1607 burial ground inside the fort, which contains approximately 36 graves from the first year of English settlement. For the past several years, the team has built a structure over this excavation area, not only to keep the human remains within safe from the elements, but also to keep them out of the view of the public during such sensitive excavations. Jamestown Rediscovery has also become increasingly selective about sharing photographs of these human remains on public platforms. This decision has been made partially out of respect for visitors who may find these photographs unsettling to view. Jamestown Rediscovery also strives to treat the human remains excavated here with the respect and dignity they deserve. After all, these were actual people who lived and died here. This means that we keep our burial excavations out of the public eye, both on site and online. As a public archaeology site, however, we strive to keep our visitors in the loop with everything we learn through our excavations. So, how can we present our findings during burial excavations in a respectful manner without sharing photographs? The answer lies in illustration. 

Archaeological illustration is used regularly at all stages of excavation, especially when recording the stratigraphy of the site. Conservation staff also regularly draw artifacts in order to better study them and make their elements easier to identify. The illustrations I made of the burials this year combine these efforts by representing and recording the excavation area, the remains we excavated, and the methods we use. The production of three illustrations for the burials at the 1607 burial ground began early in the excavation process. As a newer member of the crew, I did not participate hands-on with most of the excavation of human remains this year. Instead, I orbited between burials, supporting the team’s work while also closely observing the excavations and making live sketches of the human remains, of the archaeologists, and of the whole excavation area. These live sketches allowed me to take very detailed notes of the positioning and condition of the human remains without relying on a two-dimensional photograph and the limitations of its quality.

Click to enlarge images. Live sketch and notes on burials JR1237, JR1846, and JR1335, after the remains were exposed in situ.

After the excavations were complete, I consulted with Director of Archaeology Sean Romo and Senior Staff Archaeologist Mary Anna Hartley to decide what kinds of illustrations would be most useful and appropriate to produce. Three different types of images were chosen: two overhead illustrations of the whole burial site, one in watercolor and one in pen and ink, and one painting adapted from one of my live sketches which would show two of our archaeologists at work.  

Each illustration also required different kinds of preparation in order to achieve the desired effect. For the watercolor paintings, I used a test sheet to determine how to mix each color I needed to use. I painted a swatch on the sheet and labeled each with what paints I used to mix it. Additionally, I painted a small test of the sets of remains so that I could see how all the colors would work together in the final product, and made notes about my process during this stage. This “cheat sheet” was helpful in maintaining a consistent result in both paintings over the multiple days that they were in progress.

For my pen and ink illustration, I created another test sheet by drawing the outline of one of the burials four times over, and using eight different shading techniques across them. This enabled me to consult with other staff members, especially with Director of the Archaearium Jamie May, as to which method would be both the most visually appealing and convey the most information about the remains. Jamie’s insights were particularly valuable, as she is not only an archaeologist with decades of experience, but an expert archaeological illustrator as well.

(L) The large painting of all three burials in progress (R) Putting the final touches on the large pen and ink drawing

Finally, for both the painted and inked overhead compositions, I overlaid a grid across my reference image, drew the same grid on my paper, and transferred the necessary lines. Then I was able to use my “cheat sheets” to create the final illustrations, making adjustments where needed. For the painting depicting the excavations in-progress, I recreated my sketch on a larger scale, and added color to create a lifelike scene. 

Each piece serves a specific purpose. The watercolor painting of all three excavated individuals provides visual information comparable to what our final record photograph would provide. In full color, the remains are situated within the excavation area, including other archaeological features in the area as well as elements of the excavation structure. This painting strikes a balance between the accurate and the artistic. While all of the elements in view are accurately positioned, the painting is a step away from the minute detail of a photograph or a penned drawing, and it wouldn’t be possible or accurate to take measurements from a painting like this.

The pen and ink drawing gives a more technical view of the remains as archaeological finds. This drawing includes a 0.5 foot grid spacing in pencil, which is not only to scale with the remains represented, but is also oriented with the archaeological grid upon which all of our excavations are based. This means that this drawing is useful for more specific purposes, such as reports or presentations, and can be used to take quick or approximate measurements of the burials.

The working scene, another watercolor painting, is less accurate than the other two illustrations, because it is based off of a live sketch. Rather than conveying information about the remains themselves, this painting instead seeks to provide a look past the curtain into the way we excavate burials. Because our burial excavations are obscured from public view, it may be difficult for visitors to get a good sense of what goes on inside. This painting provides a window into our process, along with all of the preparation work and tools we use to get it done.

The results of this process were three illustrations which convey different types of detailed information for viewers who are interested in our burial excavations, but who may not want or need to look at photographs of the remains. The process of illustrating these burials benefits not only the public, but the artist — as a newer member of the team, illustrating these burials has allowed me the closest possible study of these remains without personally excavating them. To draw something, to faithfully reproduce it, is to know it. Through illustrating these three burials, not only do I know them better, but more visitors are able to become familiar with our burials and how we excavate them. Even so, these illustrations represent only a small portion of the work that went into our burial excavations this year. 

For more information regarding the construction of our burial structure, the methodology behind our excavations, and the forensic analysis and conclusions drawn from each of these burials, explore our Dig Updates from August, September, and October 2024, as well as our Dig Deeper video series on YouTube.

(L) The final watercolor illustration depicting burials JR1237, JR1847, and JR1335 in situ (M) The final pen and ink drawing depicting burials JR1237, JR1847, and JR1335 in situ (R) The final painted working scene, depicting Staff Archaeologist Caitlin Delmas and Senior Staff Archaeologist Mary Anna Hartley excavating burial JR1237 within the burial structure.

During January most of the archaeologists are focused on indoor tasks including report writing, digital mapping of features, and helping the collections staff with artifact processing. Director of Archaeology Sean Romo, and Senior Staff Archaeologists Mary Anna Hartley and Anna Shackelford have taken the time to plan this year’s excavations. At Smithfield, a low-lying area northwest of James Fort, the three have drawn up plans to dig 21 5′ x 5′ squares in a north/south line from the Archaearium museum to the Dale House Café. The hope here is to identify any burials or other features quickly (5′ x 5’s are 25% of the area of the usual 10′ x 10′ and thus should take much less time to excavate) as the area is increasingly flood prone and archaeological resources are being lost. Of particular interest to the team are burials. The burial excavated this year in Smithfield was in exceedingly poor shape, with very little bone surviving . . . the majority of what was left was stains in the soil. By excavating these squares the team hopes at the very least to learn the bounds of the graveyard here. Archaeological monitoring by the National Park Service in the first half of the 20th
century noted a burial just outside the Dale House Café. Could that be part of the same burial ground as is found where the Archaearium (and previously the 17th-century statehouse) now sits? The line of excavations should go a long way in informing the archaeologists what lies beneath Smithfield. They can then plan how best to approach the area and record those layers.

Near the eastern edge of Smithfield the plan is to continue the excavations of three 6′ x 6′ foundations discovered by ground-penetrating radar (GPR). There is thought that these might be Confederate artillery barracks and later served as shelters for escaped enslaved people once the Union forces captured the island. The team is basing these hypotheses on primary materials including a hand-drawn map of Jamestown Island during the Civil War, housed in William & Mary’s special collections library. The archaeologists have had difficulty ground-proofing these hypotheses because the area is often too saturated to conduct excavations. The dig here will be resumed as soon as it’s dry enough to do so.

Just outside the Godspeed Cottage, former home of Dr. William Kelso and now office space for the archaeological team, Staff Archaeologist Gabriel Brown is leading excavations in an area that contained a high amplitude target per a GPR survey. Yet surprisingly, the dig here has yet to turn up anything of note. The team has opened up a 10′ x 10′ and an additional 5′ x 10′ in the search for the feature that showed up so prominently on GPR. The excavations are about a foot and a half deep at this point and Gabriel is planning another GPR survey here now that the excavations are substantially below the surface. In the early 20th century, this area was planted with fruit trees per period photographs and these excavations have revealed charcoal and other features that may line up with the orchard. Many nails as well as some ceramic sherds and glass have been found during the excavations, though they all date to after the 17th century. One of the finds includes sherds of a jar lid made of milk glass, a type of glass used in the early 20-century. Stay tuned for more information in future updates as the dig progresses in this area.

In the field north of James Fort, excavations are also planned to continue in an area where several ditches and one of a series of subfloor pits should intersect. The hope is that a diagnostic artifact will be found in one of the features, one that will help date it. Also, if the features intersect as they should, the archaeologists will be able to use relative dating to determine their temporality. Because newer features will always cut older ones, these excavations may help us date both the pits and the ditches. So far the pits have been largely devoid of artifacts, which can mean the feature is early, but we can’t be certain as of yet.

A classic example of a diagnostic artifact in a colonial Virginia context is a pipe stem, which can be dated by measuring the diameter of the bore hole of the stem, with characteristics such as bowl size and stem length also useful in the dating process (though often a sherd of the stem is all the archaeologist has to work with). These excavations have the potential to be an important piece of our understanding of the colonists’ efforts north of the fort area.

Another proposed site on the list for 2025 is a 15′ x 5′ rectangle just east of the present dirt road where ground-penetrating radar (GPR) loses the “Zuñiga map” flag ditch. The ditch, a 1608 feature present on the Zuñiga map of Jamestown, is represented by a flag-like drawing protruding from the fort’s northern bulwark. Using GPR and excavations, the team found much of the ditch, but as they followed its turn westward, it became harder to find. The hope with these excavations is to pick up the ditch’s trail again, which appears on the map to include some sort of enclosure.

Shifting to the east, just a few yards north of the Pocahontas statue, two 10′ x 10′ squares near a cellar are on the agenda for the warmer months. The cellar, found in 2024 via GPR surveys by both Field School students and Kids Camp attendees, is brick-lined and is on the property of John Howard, a tailor who patented land here in 1694. We’re not sure if this cellar is related to Howard or if it was built before or after his ownership. GPR and previous excavations revealed several burials in the area, at least one of which appears to transect the cellar. Similar to the north field features, determining which features cut through which will inform us if the burials or the cellar are older. The two planned squares here will hopefully give some clarity to the nature of the cellar and help determine if further excavations are warranted.

In the fall four burials are set to be excavated, three in the 1607 Burial Ground and one in Smithfield. The colonist excavated from Smithfield in 2024 was in poor shape, and was originally interpreted as a child. However, further analysis suggests this person was actually an adult. The severe degradation of the human remains in Smithfield is cause for concern, as usually adult human remains survive well in the ground at Jamestown. This year, the team plans to excavate another adult in the same environment, to see if the remains are in the same poor condition. If they are just as degraded, the team will have to weigh whether more excavation will be useful or not. Does the limited data that can be obtained from largely dissolved remains warrant the team’s efforts, particularly when many other archaeological
resources are also threatened by flooding? The condition of this second adult colonist excavated this fall will help answer these questions.

In the Jamestown Rediscovery Center, archaeological staff are helping the curatorial team pick through material from Pit 1, found in 1994 shortly after the project began. The material has been “floated”, or separated by buoyancy using water and fine screens. After flotation, the team sifted the heavy fraction (the portion that sank during the flotation process) through several screens, with mesh as fine as 1mm to catch the smallest artifacts. This smallest mesh has caught artifacts such as seeds and beads while screens of 2mm and larger have caught sturgeon bones, nut shells, glass, crucible sherds, lead shot, lithics, copper, and burned wood. After Pit 1 is complete, the team will then turn their attention to Pit 5, a feature found just outside James Fort’s 1608 addition that expanded the walled settlement to the east. The east bulwark trench and Pit 3 have already been completed. Senior Curator Leah Stricker is currently picking through the light fraction, the portion of the objects that floated to the top during the flotation process. The features that are being chosen for this process are those that are being analyzed as part of a Surrey-Skiffes Creek grant focused on faunal remains.

Assistant Curator Magen Hodapp is processing the final bag of excavated material from feature 2718N, one of the layers of the fort’s first well (the “John Smith Well”). She is separating faunal material from other objects such as brick, glass, and lead. She is then separating fish from other faunal material to prepare for their analysis by outside zooarchaeologists Steve Atkins and Susan Andrews. Mr. Atkins’ specialty is fish and Ms. Andrews concentrates on everything else.

Inside the Vault, Senior Curator Leah Stricker and Collections Assistant Lauren Stephens continue their work on the crucible collection as part of the wider reference collection efforts. Before the work on crucibles began in the fall of last year, there were only 10 known crucibles in the collection. After a few months’ work the count is now up to a minimum of 60. The collection contains over 2000 crucible sherds and Lauren has made many mends over the past few months. To help with their cataloging and mending efforts, sherds are grouped by their location on the vessel, such as rims and bases. Most of the crucibles in the collection are of a triangular shape indicative of manufacture in Hesse, a state in present-day Germany. Hesse was known for its high quality crucibles able to withstand very high temperatures. Many of the crucibles in the collection were cross-mended from different contexts, meaning various sherds of a single vessel were found in different locations in and around James Fort (cross-mended crucibles are marked by a blue tag in this photo). As she catalogs each sherd in the database, Leah is also noting the residues on their surfaces, evidence of the colonists’ metallurgical and glass making efforts.

Prior to doing any kind of digging at Jamestown, whether it be building construction or planting flowers, archaeological excavations need to be conducted first. Construction of a storage shed built in 2020 and located between the Jamestown Rediscovery Center and the Archaearium museum didn’t begin until preliminary archaeology on its proposed footprint was completed. Senior Staff Archaeologist Anna Shackelford is writing the report for those excavations now that most of the team is inside for the winter. The excavations revealed the presence of two burials, likely a continuation of the graveyard found a few feet away at the Archaearium that extends at least partially into Smithfield just south of the museum. They also found two modern utility trenches and part of a fenceline, likely dating to the 19th century, another portion of which was found in prior excavations just north of the Archaearium. As a result of the excavations, our maintenance crew knew exactly where the burials were and avoided them when placing the foundation. Associate Curator Emma Derry is cataloging the artifacts found by the archaeologists during the shed dig. While it was mostly a mixture of modern trash and 19th- and 20th-century artifacts, Emma’s work will be integral for the final report. If you’re interested in learning more about these excavations, you can watch Dig Deeper episode 24: “Laid to Rest : Final Finds at the Dead Shed.”

In the lab, Assistant Conservator Jo Hoppe is conserving Jamestown’s collection of diptych dials. The ivory artifacts are a sundial and compass in one, with two main ivory leaves joined together, via copper-alloy bindings, that open and close similarly to a flip phone. Because many of the diptych dials are in a fragmentary state it is hard to know how many we have . . . it’s difficult to say with certainty that two non-connecting pieces are part of the same object even when their form suggests it. With that said, it is probable that we have 5 or 6 diptych dials in the collection. The initial part of Jo’s work is a condition assessment . . . to see where things stand currently and address any issues. This is an important part of conservation. Even though an object may be stable after its initial conservation, our conservators do condition assessments of artifacts both in the Archaearium museum and in the collections storage in the Vault at set intervals. You can’t take a fix-it-and-forget-it approach to artifact conservation.

Archaeological conservation is a constantly-changing field, with new and better methods coming to the fore with experimentation as with any other scientific field. When the diptych dials were first conserved, they were coated with B-72, a resin that is widely used in archaeological conservation to protect artifacts from potentially damaging interactions with the environment. Now it is known, however, that covering ivory in B-72 prevents the organic material from “breathing,” that is allowing moisture to freely come and go from the material. Preventing this transfer by sealing the artifacts can lead to cracking. So one of Jo’s first tasks was to remove the B-72 sealing the ivory. Luckily B-72 is a reversible sealant which is one of the reasons it’s used so often in conservation. She then did a quick run of an acetone-dipped swab across the surfaces to remove foreign substances. She tries to minimize the time acetone comes in contact with ivory because it draws moisture out of the material, potentially damaging it. Jo has several scalpels of various sharpnesses, choosing a relatively dull one and working through the lens of a microscope to remove the B-72 from the manmade etchings on the ivory’s surface. Where the copper-alloy bindings still exist, she is coating those in B-72 to prevent further corrosion. Read more about diptych dials, how they were used to tell time, and how they were constructed here. Oxford’s History of Science Museum has an excellent video describing how these work, using a contemporary example in its collection.

When we hired Archaeological Field Technician Eleanor Robb, we were getting not only an excellent archaeologist but also a talented artist. Eleanor was a student of 2023’s field school and we were happy to have her join the team last year after her college graduation. During the winter months she has been working on drawings of the human remains from 2024’s burial excavations. The display of human remains is sensitive for many reasons, whether they be actual bones in a museum or photographs on a website. Part of Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources’ (DHR) agreement with Jamestown regarding burial excavations mandates that they must be out of the public eye. This is one of the reasons a burial structure is built to house the archaeologists during the process. Given Eleanor’s artistic gifts, the archaeology team thought asking her to create drawings of the colonists’ remains might give us a tool to display accurate representations of them in cases where showing photos of the remains is inappropriate. She uses a grid to ensure the accuracy of her drawings and India ink which, once dry, is waterproof and appropriate for archival purposes. To obtain shades of gray, she dilutes the ink with water. Depth and shadows are portrayed with stippling (dots) and hatching (lines). Eleanor wrote a blog post about the process for those interested in learning more.

Another project Eleanor is lending her artistic talents to is enhancing Jamestown’s spade nosings webpage. Nosings were the iron “business end” of a spade and over 100 of them are in the Jamestown collection. Many of the nosings have maker’s marks impressed into them but they are difficult to make out in the artifact photos, which is where Eleanor comes in. She is drawing the maker’s marks using high resolution images as a guide to aid her. Where these photographs don’t give her the detail she needs, she is studying the artifacts themselves, stored in the “Dry Room” where temperature and humidity are kept within a range that inhibits corrosion. The maker’s marks include hearts, gauntlets, and asterisks and her artwork has been added to the spade nosings webpage, which you can view here. She will now turn her attention to drawing the maker’s marks found on Jamestown’s axe collection.

Our collections volunteers have been busy sorting and cleaning artifacts from various contexts to accompany the reports being written by our archaeologists. While processing a fill layer north of the Memorial Church the volunteers found a 17th-century button, a projectile point, and a Barber quarter dating to 1900. They are also working on artifacts excavated from last year’s dig south of the Archaearium. While working through that material they found a sherd of Bleu Persan ceramic, manufactured in England ca. 1680-1710. This fragment is the only example of this style in the Jamestown collection.

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Dig Update Archive, 2004-present

This month at the Archaearium dig, another possible brick-lined burial has been discovered, making it two found here. Past research suggests that the English didn’t line their graves with bricks until the 1650s. The team will continue to investigate this type of burial to pin down when the graves may date to. A large number of mammal bones, of both small and large species were found here this month, possibly indicating the presence of a midden. In the westernmost unit sits a large quantity of brick and plaster rubble, possibly related to deconstruction or repair of a structure after one of the fires that damaged the buildings on this ridge. Several sherds of a burned refined red-bodied earthenware vessel were found close to the rubble. A wine bottle neck was found in these excavations this month as was another fragment of an exploded grenade, perhaps evidence of the events of September 19, 1676 when Nathaniel Bacon’s rebels captured and burned Jamestown. These bones, artifacts, and rubble are all coming from below the plowzone, meaning they represent original deposits. Although plowscars cut through the rubble, the material is largely intact.

Inside the Rediscovery Center, Senior Staff Archaeologist Dr. Chuck Durfor and Site Supervisor Anna Shackelford are working on a 3D model of the Memorial Church and 1680s Church Tower. The model will be used as a guide to help place new drainage for the Church and also as an asset for our virtual Jamestown efforts led by Staff Archaeologist Gabriel Brown. Chuck and Anna are using both digital SLR and drone photography to cover every angle of the structure. The photos are then placed on a 3D model of the Church as a type of skin, with the result being nearly photo-realistic. The software placing the skin on the model uses points placed by Chuck and Anna that define which parts of the photos match up with which parts of the model. Chuck handled the digital SLR photography, taking shots of everything except the roof, which is where Anna’s skill with the drone came in. Chuck is now merging all of the photos (2144 shots with the SLR camera, 440 with the drone) to create the model.

In the lab, the conservation staff is excited about the arrival of five new microscopes. The existing ones were lacking in areas such as lighting, magnification, and digital photography. Four of the new microscopes have a magnification range of 7x-100x whereas the old ones’ range was 10x-45x. They are trinocular microscopes, allowing for both eyes and a camera to view the object at once. The built-in camera takes 18 megapixel photos and an SLR camera can also be attached when especially high quality photos are desired. A fifth microscope, a light-polarizing type, has a magnification range of 50x-2500x and will allow for viewing of individual fibers of cordage such as the rope excavated from the Governor’s Well. This will enable identification of these fibers and artifacts such as wooden objects where viewing the cell structures is of primary importance in identifying the tree species from which they were made.

Jamestown Settlement, the living history museum just across the causeway from Historic Jamestowne, has generously provided our curatorial team a deceased iguana for comparative purposes. The lizard was cooked as part of 2024’s “Foods & Feasts of Colonial Virginia” event. Iguanas are not native to Virginia, but the settlers mention eating them while in the Caribbean, stopping there while following the trade winds on their way to Virginia. Earlier this year the first iguana bones were found in the collection, discovered while picking through faunal remains excavated from the “John Smith Well,” the fort’s first. Currently the iguana is in a freezer, but eventually it will be partially butchered, buried artificially in a plastic tote, and then it will decompose naturally until just the bones remain. The addition of a full iguana skeleton to our comparative collection will make identifying any future iguana remains much easier.

Associate Curator Janene Johnston has added representative examples of prosser buttons to the reference collection. These ceramic buttons have a sew-through design and were invented around 1840. They speak to the centuries of human occupation of Jamestown Island after it ceased to be Virginia’s capital in 1699, as farmland and historic attraction. Assistant Curator Magen Hodapp has completed her processing of layer “W” of the John Smith well. The hundreds of thousands of bones will now go to outside zooarchaeologists Steve Atkins and Susan Andrews who will look for details such as butchery patterns, signs of burning, age, and sex. They will also further categorize the bones by species where possible. Archaeological Field Technician Josh Barber, in the lab to help the curatorial staff during the winter months, found a tiny glass bead while picking through the heavy fraction of floated soil excavated from Pit 1, one of the first features discovered by Jamestown Rediscovery in 1994.

Director of Archaeology Sean Romo, Director of Conservation and Collections Michael Lavin, and Associate Curator Emma Derry traveled to New England this month to meet with partners in the fields of ancient DNA and geology. The first stop was the University of Connecticut where the trio met with professors Drs. Dave Leslie and Will Ouimet, and undergrad Cassie Aimetti to discuss the findings of the vibracore samples taken at Jamestown in June. Vibracoring uses vibration to force a hollow metal tube into the ground, taking a sample of soil ten feet deep or more that is extracted using a jack and then opened and analyzed in a lab. Of special importance to the team are two goals: identifying sections of the Great Road, and determining which sections of the Pitch and Tar Swamp are 20th and 21st century phenomena (relatively new occurrences).

Referring to the map at right, cores 13, 14, 23, and 24 have no plowzone layer, meaning they were either never farmed or the plowzone has since been disturbed. Cores 20, 23, and 24 have a sandy layer that may be evidence of the Great Road. Core 7 has a plowzone layer underneath a marsh layer, indicating that the area was previously farmed (and dry enough to do so). The swamp there is a relatively new phenomenon, which jibes with what long-time employees of Jamestown Rediscovery remember…land that was once a field is now underwater. Core 13 contained a large charcoal deposit, evidence of a forest fire that occurred over 35,000 years ago according to Dr. Leslie. Several of the core samples analyzed using portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) showed a spike in lead that could be related to manufacturing processes (metallurgy, glass making) undertaken by the colonists. But it could also be natural. Further vibracore samples might help settle this question by looking for patterns of increased and decreased lead levels at various distances from industrial areas discovered archaeologically.

Ms. Aimetti demonstrated a macropod scanner that she uses to photograph each of the cores. A digital SLR camera is a component of the scanner, which is moved along a track at measured increments down the length of the core, with photographs taken at each increment. Post processing that includes both software and human analysis results in a single digital image stitched together from the multiple photographs. There is a yardstick that runs parallel to the core that helps Ms. Aimetti combine sections of the core that are devoid of the distinguishing features that help both computers and humans determine where the photographs overlap. When she’s done, there is a high-resolution photograph record of each core that can be zoomed and panned without needing access to the core itself.

X-ray fluorescence scans of the cores are also taken, at set intervals along the length of the core. This process involves a pXRF (portable X-ray fluorescence) device that bombards a material with x-rays. The material emits x-rays back at the device, with different materials (the atoms comprising them) responding with characteristic wavelengths that are used to identify them. The UConn team uses specified intervals for pXRF scans (every 2 cm in this case) to get an aggregate of the data, so that a single scan isn’t definitive for a length of the core. The data obtained using pXRF along the length of the core shows elemental composition through time, and so changes — for instance an increase in the presence of lead — may be an indicator of the arrival of the colonists and give clues about the industries they were involved in.

The team next had a discussion with UConn’s Dr. Deborah Bolnick, professor, anthropological geneticist, and director of UConn’s Anthropological Genomics Lab. Dr. Bolnick is a partner in the bioarchaeology project at Jamestown, overseeing the extraction and analysis of colonists’ DNA. Sean, Michael, and Emma discussed possible other means of extracting DNA, perhaps even when only stains in the soil remain, especially pertinent to our excavations in Smithfield, with its low-lying disposition leaving it prone to increasing flooding. This flooding is subjecting the settlers buried there to wet-dry cycles that dissolve the skeletal remains but leave stains in the soil. Could DNA be extracted from the stains themselves? We don’t know, but with Dr. Bolnick’s help we hope to find out. Experiments such as the successful extraction of DNA from a 19th-century pipe stem give us hope. If successful, this method could also open up avenues of research for DNA extraction when the traditional methods of obtaining DNA — necessarily partially destructive — are not an option.

Travelling next to Dartmouth College, Sean, Michael, and Emma had a discussion with Dr. Raquel Fleskes, professor and molecular anthropologist who has extracted and processed the DNA of many of the Jamestown colonists. Dr. Fleskes let the team know that no viable DNA could be recovered from JR1225B, the young man found in the 1607 burial ground with a projectile point next to his left femur. It is thought that he may have died during the May 26, 1607 attack by Virginia Indians, prior to the construction of James Fort. The inability to recover viable DNA from 400-year-old skeletons is unfortunate but common. The field is rapidly changing, with current methodologies yielding results that were impossible 20 years ago. Hopefully future technology and methods will yield results where current means fall short. Next the group discussed a rough five year master plan for continued burial DNA analysis, determining how many burials are feasible each year, and considering possible collaborations on NSF (National Science Foundation) grants to support future work. The group agreed that community engagement with descendant communities must remain an important part of the process.

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Dig Update Archive, 2004-present

A feature originally thought to be a cellar now appears to be a brick-lined grave. The bricks likely served as a foundation for a ledger stone which is no longer there. According to Senior Staff Archaeologist Mary Anna Hartley, English brick-lined burials didn’t come into use until around 1650, so this grave was one of the later ones in this burial ground. The construction of the statehouse and other government-related buildings in the 1660s, built on top of dozens of graves, gives a nice datable terminus to the burial ground. The archaeologists found a small builder’s trench surrounding the grave, allowing masons the access needed to lay the lower courses of brick.

The archaeological remains of a building that was initially thought to be contemporaneous with James Fort is now thought to date to the third quarter of the 17th century. The building’s footprint runs through several of the squares in the western part of the excavations south of the Archaearium. Its northern extent hasn’t been found yet, and the team is going to follow its footprint in that direction in an effort to define its bounds. The remains of this building cut through some of the graves here, indicating it was built after these colonists were interred. This clue made archaeologists reassess their earlier supposition that the building might date to the early 17th century. Because of the discovery of the building, the team opened up additional squares between the existing ones, in order to get a full picture of its archaeological remains. The team discovered burned timber inside one of these squares, the remains of which continues to the north. They’ll be investigating this as they move in that direction in the coming weeks. There were two fires at this location, the first in 1676 during Bacon’s Rebellion, and the second in 1698 that led to the relocation of the capital to Middle Plantation (present-day Williamsburg). Perhaps these timbers are evidence of one of those fires. Hopefully the excavations in the coming weeks will shed light on their date and function.

In the lab, Assistant Conservator Jo Hoppe is mending an Essex Post-Medieval Blackware posset pot. Jo is continuing the work of Conservation Intern Jackie Bucklew who mended several sherds of the vessel during her time at Jamestown. Several additional sherds of the posset pot have been discovered in artifact storage in the Vault and so Jo is creating a stand for the vessel out of foam to support it during the mending process. Posset pots were used to pour posset, which in the early 17th century was a hot drink consisting of heated milk curdled by mixing it with wine or ale. Posset was thought to be a remedy for several common maladies. The sherds of this vessel were found in multiple fort-period contexts including the first and second wells and the blacksmith shop/bakery.

Just next to Jo, Senior Conservator Dr. Chris Wilkins is building storage containers for an assortment of cordage found in the Governor’s Well and the Smithfield Well. Most of the cordage was found in the Governor’s Well during excavations of its waterlogged layers in late September, 2023. Likely made out of hemp, the cordage would almost certainly not have survived had it not been submerged for the last 400 years, beyond the reach of the aerobic bacteria that preys on organics but that can’t survive underwater. A positive ID on the cordage’s composition should be in the works shortly thanks to the imminent arrival of a much-needed research microscope in December. Chris is building the boxes both to protect the artifacts and to permit more efficient storage because space is always at a premium in the Vault.

In the lab’s second floor Staff Archaeologist Gabriel Brown is photographing Chinese porcelain for an upcoming book to accompany an exhibit at Jamestown Settlement on the ceramic’s presence in the colony. The book, “Following the Dragon: Late Ming Porcelain from James Fort, Jamestown, Virginia” is researched and written by Merry Outlaw, Senior Curator at Jamestown, and is set to be published in 2025. The book will give insight into the manufacture of the vessels and how they came to be half a world away from their origin in China. For some vessels that are largely incomplete, Gabe will digitally overlay the sherds in the collection over more complete examples from private collections. This will allow the reader to see both the artifacts and the vessels as they were in the 17th century.

Assistant Curator Magen Hodapp continues her work on bones found in James Fort’s first well, also called the “John Smith Well” because it was constructed in late 1608 or early 1609 while he was president of the council. Her count for bones of Layer “N” of the well is up to 82,000, up from 70,000 last month. This number may more than double by the time her work is complete. Dr. Elizabeth Reitz, zooarchaeologist and Professor Emerita from the Georgia Museum of Natural History visited Jamestown this month and lent her expertise to our curatorial staff. Dr. Reitz examined our iguana bones and deduced that we have two distinct iguanas in the collection. Iguanas are not native to Virginia. Captain John Smith and George Percy, both colonists from the original voyage to Jamestown, each mention killing iguanas while in the Caribbean:

In Mevis, Mona, and the Virgin Isles, we spent some time, where, with a lothsome beast like a Crocodil, called a Gwayn [iguana], Tortoises, Pellicans, Parrots, and fishes, we daily feasted.

The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles, John Smith, 1624

We also killed Guanas in fashion of a Serpent, and speckled like a Toade under the belly.

Observations by Master George Percy, 1607

For more information on the iguana bones in the collection and how they came to be identified please view Dig Deeper Episode 71.

The Southeastern Archaeological Conference (SEAC) was in Williamsburg this month and many of Jamestown’s archaeologists, conservators, and curators participated. Janene Johnston, Associate Curator at Jamestown, was a co-chair of the conference which hosted over 800 attendees. Jamestown staff gave 12 presentations in the program covering recent archaeological projects, collections-based research, conservation methodology, and public outreach. About 45 archaeologists attending the conference came to Jamestown for a behind-the-scenes guided tour of the excavations and collections area.

The Council of Virginia Archaeologists (COVA), Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources (DHR), the Archaeological Society of Virginia, and SEAC co-hosted COVA’s public day entitled “Celebrate Virginia Archaeology!” on November 16. Jamestown Rediscovery manned two tables at the event, one focusing on artifacts, allowing folks to pick through material excavated from James Fort’s first well, as can be done at the Ed Shed during warmer months. The other table, led by Director of Archaeology Sean Romo, was a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) exercise. Sean buried several objects in the sand and participants then used a handheld GPR machine to find and attempt to identify the objects using the data provided by the GPR. Over 30 organizations from across the state presented at the event and in excess of 1000 people were in attendance.

Several Jamestown Rediscovery staff members attended the annual Let Freedom Ring Foundation Gala, held at the Williamsburg Lodge on November 9th. This event supports the Let Freedom Ring Foundation and First Baptist Church, and their advocacy efforts for the African American descendant community in the region. Our team enjoyed meeting members of the descendant community, hearing speeches by Let Freedom Ring Foundation President Connie Harshaw and Martin Luther King, III, and a concert by Jonathan Butler.

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Dig Update Archive, 2004-present

There are a large number of burials in and near Smithfield. Over 100 are clustered on Statehouse Ridge, where the Archaearium now stands, and an additional 18 were found during our recent excavations in Smithfield. The limits of the burial ground have not yet been reached, and our southernmost 15’x15′ square contained three closely-spaced graves. The burial ground is thought to have been used as early as 1610 and into the 1640s, and so likely contains a multitude of graves. Normally, the archaeologists do not disinter individuals from this cemetery. However, Smithfield is “bowl” shaped, and sits significantly lower than Statehouse Ridge. Smithfield floods with regularity now, something it didn’t do when the Jamestown Rediscovery project started in 1994. This flooding causes wet/dry cycles that damage human remains. This year, the archaeologists decided to assess the damage done to the human remains in Smithfield. It is important to know what damage the water has caused thus far, so the team can plan ahead for future work in Smithfield and other low-lying spaces.

The remains were in poor condition, with most of the body dissolved into the soil, leaving behind only stains in the outline of a skeleton. Despite this deterioration, the body staining showed the layout of the individual in the grave, and indicated they had likely been shrouded. The skull was still present, its survival perhaps aided by the fact that it was resting against the east end of the grave shaft a few inches higher than the rest of the remains and thus a few inches higher than the groundwater just beneath the burial. Clay kept the skull together in the ground and during removal to the lab. The left humerus is the only other bone that survived beyond tiny fragments. Soil samples were taken where various parts of the body would have been, including the lungs, the stomach, the intestines, and the colon. These samples will be investigated for the presence of pollen and phytoliths that could give clues to the colonist’s diet. Additionally Senior Conservator Dr. Chris Wilkins worked with the excavators—Archaeological Field Technicians Josh Barber and Hannah Barch, and Director of Archaeology Sean Romo—to select areas for elemental analysis. He then used a portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) machine to take readings at various depths of the excavation away from the remains, to act as a control. These readings will be analyzed in the coming weeks. Inside this excavation square there were two postholes that don’t seem to be related to the burial. The postholes are likely fenceposts, as they aren’t substantial enough to be part of a building. These will be recorded on our excavation map like all other features. Perhaps future excavations nearby will reveal other postholes related to these, giving shape to their function.

A few feet away, excavations are picking back up on the western excavation squares just south of the Archaearium. In June, a possible fort-period building was found here, its remains resembling a building discovered in the middle of James Fort. That interpretation is now in question, as the team exposes more of the feature. Notably, archaeologists were able to conclusively determine that the feature cuts an earlier burial. This burial, and another recently exposed nearby, appears to be brick-lined, a style of interment dating to the 1650s or later. Since the possible foundation cuts the burial, it now looks like the potential building dates to after 1650. This type of reassessment is common in archaeology, as new discoveries give insight into past finds and update interpretations. Excavations in the next few months will hopefully further refine the chronology of this space.

Over at the fort, just inside the western palisade wall, a series of three burials were excavated as well. These individuals died within the first few months of the colony’s existence and the fact that they were buried inside the fort is no coincidence. The settlers were instructed by the Virginia Company of London to hide the sick and dead so that the Virginia Indians wouldn’t learn of the weakening of the colony:

“Above all things do not advertize the killing of any of your men, that the country people may know it; if they perceive that they are but common men, and that with the loss of many of theirs, they may deminish any part of yours, they will make many adventures upon you.”

Charters of the Virginia Company of London

Captain John Smith wrote that 50 colonists died between May and September of that first year, and 36 burials have been found by the archaeological team here, some being double burials, and one even containing three individuals. Some colonists’ remains have been lost to the James River, prior to the construction of the seawall in the first years of the 20th century. Samuel Yonge, engineer of the seawall that undoubtedly saved much of James Fort and prevented other colonists’ remains from eroding into the James wrote in 1896:

“It is credibly stated that when the bank thus exposed was undermined by the waves, several human skeletons lying in regular order, east and west, about two hundred feet west of the tower ruin were uncovered. On account of their nearness to the tower it seems quite probable that the skeletons were in the original churchyard. One of the skulls had been perforated by a musket ball and several buckshot, which it still held, suggesting a military execution. Soon after being exposed to the air the skeletons crumbled.”

Samuel Yonge

This graveyard that Yonge is referring to is the 1607 burial ground where October’s excavations took place, lying 200 feet west of the 1680s Church Tower. Every year the archaeologists, conservators, and curators commit to excavating, conserving, and analyzing three burials from this location. Prior to excavations in the early 2000s, the burial ground was covered by several feet of earth, ramparts from Confederate Fort Pocahontas. The Confederates and their enslaved laborers unknowingly built Fort Pocahontas in 1861 on the same high ground where the colonists built their fort 254 years earlier. These earthworks were excavated by the team in the first decade of the 21st century in order to reach the 17th century archaeological resources underneath. The team discovered the burial ground shortly thereafter, but the graves are now only a few feet from the surface, without the earthen shield that had protected them from rainwater for 140 years. The team is keen to learn as much as they can about these earliest colonists before they dissolve into the soil of their unmarked graves.

Of the three excavated this year, the individual closest to the river appears to have been in his late teens when he died, based on examination of his teeth. All individuals excavated from this area should be male as the graves here date to before women were sent to the colony. Senior Staff Archaeologist Mary Anna Hartley and Staff Archaeologist Caitlin Delmas excavated these remains, inside an unusually wide grave shaft. It was wide enough that it was surmised that it could have been a double burial, but ground-penetrating radar (GPR) disproved that idea prior to trowels reaching the remains. The skeleton was in fair to poor shape and was missing its toes, likely dissolved into the surrounding soil. The thin stature of his arm bones may indicate that his life was not filled with hard labor.

The next grave to the north held another skeleton in fair to poor shape. This individual appears to be a pre-teen, approximately 10 years of age. Staff Archaeologist Natalie Reid and Archaeological Field Technician Ren Willis excavated this burial and found most of the ribs missing, the vertebrae to be highly deteriorated, and many of the other bones very brittle, collapsed, and broken. He still had some of his baby teeth, an indicator of his young age.

The last burial this year, just to the north of Natalie’s and Ren’s, was the only adult and the best preserved. The grave shaft was just a bit too short for the individual…his feet are pressed up against the wall and his head is also elevated, likewise held up by the shaft’s wall. Site Supervisor Anna Shackelford and Staff Archaeologist Gabriel Brown excavated this individual, and found his bones to be robust. This burial was the only one to contain any artifacts. An aglet, a metal tip attached to string to prevent fraying and ease threading (much like the hard plastic tip of a modern shoestring), was found near the colonist’s feet, and is strong evidence that this individual was shrouded. The string in this case would have tied the shroud to prevent it opening during burial preparation and interment. Another artifact, an ancient projectile point was also found in the burial shaft, likely unrelated to the colonist and escaping notice of the men digging and filling in the grave in 1607.

All of the remains will undergo isotopic testing, with stable isotopes of several elements such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen giving clues to diet and location of origin (Read more about isotopes and what they can tell us about an individual). The bones will also be tested for lead levels, with a correlation existing between high lead levels and high status due to eating and drinking from vessels such as lead-glazed ceramics and pewter containing the toxic metal.

The process now shifts to the lab, inside the Rediscovery Center, where the archaeological conservators and curators are painstakingly conserving, analyzing, and cataloging the bones, and taking samples for isotopic testing and DNA extraction.

In the Vault, Associate Curators Janene Johnston and Emma Derry have been reexamining Jamestown’s organic bead collection after a realization that some of them may actually be button cores. A detailed look at the eight thread-wrapped buttons in the collection reveals a wooden core around which the threads are wrapped. It’s possible, and perhaps probable that several of the wooden beads are instead these wooden-core buttons without surviving threads. It’s also possible, though less likely, that some of the bone beads served the same purpose. Shape is an important determining factor in the classification, with domed “beads” more likely to be button cores. The two curators are poring over the beads and buttons and are preparing their findings for presentation at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference this month in Williamsburg.

Collections Assistant Lauren Stephens spent some of October continuing work on crucibles. As discussed in last month’s dig update, the crucibles are being crossmended in order to determine how many crucibles in total were present at the site, the distribution of crucible sizes and shapes, and to better understand the contexts from which the fragments came. Ultimately some of the mended vessels will form part of the Jamestown Reference Collection, which represents the breadth and depth of all of the material recovered by Jamestown archaeologists from 1994-today. Reference Collection artifacts are kept in the vault for easy access for research and as cataloging reference material. Working in collaboration with Senior Curator Leah Stricker, Lauren has mended 47 distinct crucibles this month alone!  

Assistant Curator Magen Hodapp continues her work with animal bones from the fort’s first well, the “John Smith Well”, as it was constructed while he was president of the council in late 1608 or early 1609. Like most wells at Jamestown, it was used as a trash pit once its water went bad. And luckily for us, the well was in that stage of its life during the Starving Time, giving us a snapshot into what the colonists were eating to survive when they were under siege by the Powhatan people. Magen has completed her sort of layer “N” of the well, chock full of bones of all types. Over 70,000 bones have been counted in that layer so far and the team approximates there will be 150,000 by the time they’ve all been tallied. Once Magen’s work is complete, the bones will go to contract Zooarchaeologists Stephen Atkins and Susan Andrews, who will look for details such as butchery patterns, signs of burning, age, and sex. They will also further categorize the bones by species where possible.

Assistant Conservator Jo Hoppe is assessing the condition of artifacts stored in the Dry Room, a room adjacent to the Vault that is kept at a controlled temperature and humidity to prevent deterioration of iron materials. Jo is also taking measurements, placing paper tags printed from the database with the artifacts, rebagging the artifacts, and organizing them in the drawers to conserve space. So far she has completed work on jack plates and has been working on fish hooks, which range in size from about an inch to more than six inches in length! 

Our curators have recently cataloged the partial pipe that was found this past summer just south of the Archaearium by an attendee of the annual Kids Camp. The lead glazed, red earthenware pipe was molded into George Washington’s head with a crown at the bowl rim. Washingt- is stamped on the underside of the stem. There is another partial stamp of a “p” on one of the sides as well. This clay pipe is most likely a Stummelpfeifen, or “stub pipe,” made in Germany (Uslar or Grossalmerode) for exportation to America between 1836-1856. They made other figural pipes at the time that could have been for a presidential candidate or were commemorative like this George Washington pipe. This type of pipe became popular for American companies to reproduce, but the German pipes can be distinguished from their American counterparts by the angle that the stem protrudes from the bowl; pipes with a 45º angle were made in Germany and the pipes with 90º angle to the bowl were made in America.

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Dig Update Archive, 2004-present

The Jamestown Rediscovery archaeologists are busily preparing for excavations of burials at both the 1607 burial ground and at Smithfield just south of the Archaearium. The team is raising the burial structure at the 1607 burial ground, designed to protect the human remains from the elements and prevent contamination of the ancient DNA by modern DNA. Staff Archaeologist Gabriel Brown designed the structure here and the one that will protect the burial at Smithfield, soon to be erected as well. The team is on a tight schedule, coordinating their efforts with the arrivals of outside colleagues in the ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and biological anthropology fields. Peter Leach, a longtime collaborator from GSSI, will be traveling to Jamestown to assist the team with their imaging of the remains prior to excavations. Before Peter arrives, the archaeologists need to remove all the backfill from the 2000s excavations and excavate any features obstructing GPR and further excavations into the grave shafts. At the 1607 burial ground, two out of the three burials slated for excavation this fall have brick rubble strewn across the surface of the grave shafts. This brick rubble may be the remains of a later brick hearth. The lack of intact bricks likely indicate that the colonists robbed of much of it for use elsewhere. Like other archaeological features at Jamestown, the brick rubble will be recorded via photography (both traditional and drone), photogrammetry, and surveying so that we can have as complete a picture as possible prior to its removal and processing by the curatorial team. The archaeologists are going to look at records of past excavations to see if there may be more evidence of a later building that this possible hearth might belong to.

The planned GPR surveys will guide the team when excavation begins. Not only will the GPR allow the archaeologists to see the layout of the human remains in the grave shaft, it will also tell them how deep the remains are in the ground. This information is crucial for the team to carefully expose the remains. All of this work needs to be done before the arrival of Dr. Ashley McKeown, Biological Anthropologist at Texas State University. Dr. McKeown will work with Emma Derry, Jamestown Rediscovery Associate Curator, to analyze the remains both in situ and in the lab.

The archaeologists at Jamestown wear many hats and they have donned their construction helmets at the 1607 burial ground while building the burial structure. Protecting the human remains from the elements and contamination has proven to be a winning strategy for successful DNA recovery. One of the primary ways they do that is with the construction of a burial structure. A wood-framed building with plastic for walls and a roof, the structure is essentially a greenhouse, keeping the interior several degrees warmer than the outside. But its purpose is to shield the burials from the weather, people, and the animals that call Jamestown home. In addition to the damage that these elements can cause to the remains, people and animals could also potentially “muddy the waters” of the ancient DNA with their own. To further minimize the chance of this happening, the team wears full Tyvek suits, masks, and even booties over their shoes as they get close to exposing the remains. This level of caution has proven effective in producing viable DNA in the past, and so the team is sticking with what works.

Once the burial structure at the 1607 burial ground is complete, the archaeologists will build a second one to protect the single grave that will be excavated in Smithfield, just south of the Archaearium. The team is approaching the excavations here with trepidation…they’re not quite sure what condition the remains will be in. Smithfield floods with regularity now, something it didn’t do when the Jamestown Rediscovery project began 30 years ago. Smithfield is lower than the surrounding area, and archaeological evidence suggests that 1 or 2 feet of soil was removed from this space historically. This is evident just by looking at the landscape, as Smithfield has a shallow bowl shape, its edges visibly higher than its interior. The plowzone, the layer scarred by centuries of farming, is only a couple of inches thick here, when it averages about a foot thick on most of the island. The soil here may have been taken for landscaping fill on other parts of the island around the turn of the 20th century. As a result of this shallower surface, the burials here are that much closer to the flooding, some of which trickles down to where the remains are. Additionally, GPR shows that the groundwater here is close to the surface and may also be adversely affecting the remains. Burials subjected to wet/dry cycles at Jamestown have manifested deteriorated bones, sometimes to the point of being soft to the touch. The condition of the bones found inside will be instructive as to whether it’s worthwhile excavating any other burials found at Smithfield. They keep turning up . . . there are two others in the square containing the one that will be excavated, but they are far enough away not to interfere with the excavations.

Whereas last month Delft tiles covered the big table in the Vault, this month it’s crucibles. There are at least fifty crucibles in the Jamestown collection. These ceramic vessels were used to hold various substances before heating them to extremely high temperatures. The colonists may have been using crucibles for metallurgy and glass making in their attempts to produce a profitable export for the Virginia Company of London investors in England. Dozens of crucible fragments were found in the fort’s first well and in the Factory but interestingly very few were found in the second well. Many of these crucibles were made in Großalmerode, Hesse, in present-day Germany. The crucibles made there were known for their high quality, able to withstand the extremely high temperatures necessary for the melting of materials that they contained. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of these crucibles is that the majority of them contain residues from the processes they were used for. Umberto Veronesi, PhD, Research Fellow at VICARTE in Lisbon, Portugal, visited Jamestown this month to continue his research on the residues found inside the crucibles. He took 40 additional samples of the residues from crucibles, a melting pot, and also from finished glass samples for analysis by scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectrometry. Through these processes, Dr. Veronesi is able to determine the relative prevalence of elements in them. By also taking samples from the finished products he may be able to determine if any of the glass was produced locally.

The results of Dr. Veronesi’s past research indicates that the colonists were experimenting with extracting silver and copper from local rocks. They were also attempting to produce copper alloys, with the presence of zinc and tin suggesting brass and bronze alloying respectively. Dr. Veronesi also discovered glass encrusted on the side of many of the crucibles, evidence that jibes with the historical record indicating the colonists conducted a “tryall of Glasse” to determine if glassmaking could be a profitable enterprise in Virginia. Interestingly some of the crucible sherds have residues on the edges that mend with other sherds. This is evidence of crucibles breaking during the heating process.

The presence of hundreds of pieces of glass cullet in early fort period contexts (notably the First Well and the Factory) at a time when the fort’s buildings didn’t have glass windows indicates that it was purposely sent to Virginia with some of the earliest colonists. Cullet is waste, in this case, the edges and center pieces of crown glass, their shape disqualifying their use in windows. When put in a fire with the raw materials necessary for glassmaking, the necessary temperature for creating new glass is lowered, lessening the amount of wood and effort necessary for the process.

There are two main shapes of the crucibles in the Jamestown collection, triangular and conical. The triangular examples were meant to be stacked during storage and transport, with smaller ones inside the larger ones similar to Russian nesting dolls. The triangular examples were manufactured in Hesse, their corners allowing for a fine stream of liquid while pouring. The conical ones are of unknown origin, but similar examples have been found in archaeological sites in Quebec. Four of the crucibles in the collection bear a maker’s mark, with one imprinted with “PTV GER”, believed to represent Peter Topfer, Großalmerode. Topfer was a crucible producer in that part of Hesse in the early 17th century.

Other ceramics in the collection related to metallurgy and glass making include a large melting pot and several cupels. The melting pot is also ceramic and is used to melt materials but is much larger than the crucibles. A sample of the residue on the melting pot was among those taken by Dr. Veronesi during his latest visit. Cupels are shallow vessels typically made of pressed bone ash. When trying to separate gold or silver from impurities, pouring molten gold or silver into a cupel will result in the precious metals pooling on the cupel’s surface while impurities sink into its pores.

In addition to supporting Umberto’s research, lots of crucibles and crucible fragments have been pulled from long term storage in order to embark on a crossmending project. We hope to reconstruct the vessels to better understand how many crucibles in total were present at the site, the distribution of crucible sizes and shapes, and to better understand the contexts from which the fragments came. Crossmending ceramics makes the objects more complete, and therefore excellent resources for display or photography, but archaeologists also crossmend in order to investigate research questions that the material culture of Jamestown can help to illuminate!

Assistant Curator Magen Hodapp continues her work on layer “N” of James Fort’s first well. The layer is chock full of fish bones and she’s come across examples of shark, sucker fish, drum fish, and sheepshead to name a few. These bones and the hundreds of thousands of others found in the first well — called “John Smith’s Well” because he mentions its construction in late 1608/early 1609 during his tenure as the colony’s president — speak to the diet of the colonists during the Starving Time winter of 1609/1610 as the now-fouled well was used as a trash pit during the town cleansing ordered by Lord De La Warr in June 1610.

Associate Curator Janene Johnston presented a paper that she co-authored with Director of Collections and Conservation Michael Lavin and Director of Living History & Historic Trades Willie Balderson at the biannual Fields of Conflict Conference in Savannah, Georgia. The presentation combined evidence from historic documents and archaeological finds to show how the English adapted to the more immediate threat of the Virginia Indians and the ever changing relationship between the groups.

Conservators Dr. Chris Wilkins and Jo Hoppe are carefully conserving four bottles from Mount Vernon. The bottles, found in storage pits in the cellar of the Mansion, are among 35 discovered there, 29 of which still contained fruit stored inside in the 18th century. Chris and Jo stress that their task is to preserve as much of the original glass as is possible, not to make the bottles more aesthetically pleasing. Because they’ve been subjected to wet conditions in the cellar, the bottles have suffered from “glass disease” where sodium and silica leave the glass, causing its layers to flake off. The conservators are first consolidating the entire bottle to prevent any further deterioration. To do this, they are applying a Paraloid B-72 solution. They then treat each area of the bottles individually, using acetone to remove the B-72, and acetone dipped cotton swabs and scalpels to remove dirt. Once the area is clean, two different strength B-72 solutions are used to protect the glass, a 5% B-72 solution to get into all the nooks and crannies and protect those surfaces, and an 8% B-72 solution to protect the area as a whole.

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Dig Update Archive, 2004-present