16th/17th century English pottery shards found -- archaeology dig -- The Lost Colony

Hope some of you find this of interest -- link to the article on-line:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-roanoke-colonists-lost-and-found/ar-BBlCdZM

"But the recent insights from the British Museum’s analysis of the map prompted the foundation to re-examine the 2007 findings from Merry Hill and other dig sites in the region. A key to identifying the earliest colonial life was a type of ceramic known as Surrey-Hampshire Border ware, which was no longer imported to the New World after the Virginia Company dissolved in the early 17th century (emphasis added)."

"The reconsideration of the Site X artifacts led to a decision to explore further. With the landowner’s cooperation, archaeologists began sifting the soil again in 2012."

"Slowly, the pits gave up their secrets. In just the small areas excavated, the hillside has yielded an unusually high concentration of Border ware (emphasis added) and other colonial artifacts, such as a food-storage jar called a baluster, a hook used to stretch hides, a buckle, and pieces of early gun flintlocks called priming pans. No signs of a fort or other structures have been found, but the aggregate of the artifacts convinced the archaeologists that at least a few of the colonists wound up there."

 

It is interesting and may help to solve a 400+ year mystery. I read it in the NY Times.

 

Did you see the link with the graves inside the church? Fascinating stuff.

 

Bev aka thelmasstuff, I twice opened each link in the article, but never did see a link showing graves inside a church.

Which link in the article was it? I really would be interested in seeing the graves inside the church.

 

It's online. Sorry - it's Jamestown, not Roanoke. My bad. (I just wanted to confuse everyone.)


http://www.washingtonpost.com/local...b51cb8-2a59-11e5-a5ea-cf74396e59ec_story.html

 

Bev, thank you so much for that link -- very interesting. I noticed that of the four men in the church, three of the men appeared to have no bone-deficiency diseases in childhood (rickets) or other skeletal malformations. One skeleton is missing a thigh bone, but his other bones don't show any noticeable deformities to my eyes.

Because of their overall good bone structure, I suppose it points to their having been well fed in their native country during childhood. Obviously a living standard of "well fed/well nourished" changed for the worst in Jamestown.