Jamestown

12 Stories

Centuries-Old Animal Bones Reveal New Jamestown Fact

The colonists brought a donkey with them

(Newser) - A recent study in Science Advances is changing the story of how some of North America's earliest European settlers used animals. "While Spanish colonists brought horses to the Caribbean decades earlier, settlement of the English colony at Jamestown, Virginia, was among the first dispersals of horses to...

Jamestown DNA Reveals a Family Secret
Jamestown DNA Reveals
a Family Secret
new study
Aug 24, 2024 9:00 AM CDT

Jamestown DNA Reveals a Family Secret

Researchers discover what would have been a scandalous birth at the time

(Newser) - Researchers studying the DNA of a man buried at the colony of Jamestown 400 years ago have uncovered a secret in his prominent family—he was born "illegitimate," which would have been scandalous in his day, per a release at Phys.org . What's more, his family appears...

Jamestown's Trouble: 'We Can't Get Rid of the Water'

Climate change is threatening the historic site

(Newser) - Future visitors to historic Jamestown might need to bring scuba gear. The Virginia site of the first successful English settlement in America is being threatened by climate change, and preservation groups warn that it could be doomed if action isn't taken soon, the BBC reports. The 400-year-old site on...

Find Made at Jamestown May Be a Significant One
Find Made at Jamestown
May Be a Significant One
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Jul 29, 2018 7:03 AM CDT

Find Made at Jamestown May Be a Significant One

Archaeologists suspect they may have found George Yeardley's remains

(Newser) - "Who got such a prominent burial in the church?" It's the question archaeologists believe they know the answer to, though only time—and DNA analysis—will tell. Scientists working in Jamestown, Va., have unearthed remains they suspect might belong to Sir George Yeardley, the first governor of Virginia,...

Archaeologists Trying to Find Notable Bones in Jamestown

Archaeologists think Lord De La Warr was the first to be buried in the colonists' church

(Newser) - The Jamestown Rediscovery project has made some notable finds in the past , but it's now going after one of the colony's biggest fish. The Washington Post reports on excavations that are underway in a church on the site dating to 1906. Prior churches stood in its place over...

4 Jamestown Leaders ID'd, With Mystery Catholic Relic

Box raises questions about religious life of settlers

(Newser) - They're not household names—the Rev. Robert Hunt, Capt. Gabriel Archer, Ferdinando Wainman, and Capt. William West—but archaeologists have identified the remains of those four men as high-ranking leaders of Jamestown, reports NPR . In a sign of their importance, the four were buried in a church, the first...

Old Well May Delve Into US History

A magazine calls the find 'tantalizing'

(Newser) - Archaeologists in Jamestown—the first permanent English settlement in the Americas—say they may have found another well that delves deep into US colonial history, Popular Archaeology reports. Spotted in a seven-foot-deep cellar dating to the early 1600s, the partially visible find is "a pretty good-sized pit," says...

Archaeologists Resurrect Key Pocahontas Site

The church where she wed John Rolfe is coming back to life

(Newser) - A group of archaeologists in Jamestown, Virginia, is busy doing the opposite of what one would normally expect: building something new, rather than searching for what once was. Popular Archaeology reports that an effort is underway to rebuild a potion of the church where Pocahontas wed John Rolfe in 1614...

From Jamestown to Space Centers, Climate Change Imperils US Landmarks
 Climate Change 
 Could Bury, Burn 
 US Landmarks 
SCIENTISTS SAY
May 21, 2014 7:53 AM CDT

Climate Change Could Bury, Burn US Landmarks

Group highlights 30 precious sites at risk

(Newser) - Rising seas and wildfires caused by climate change are threatening to wipe out huge swathes of American history, from prehistoric sites in Florida and Alaska to the first English colony at Jamestown to NASA sites including the Kennedy Space Center, scientists warn. A Union of Concerned Scientists report highlights 30...

America's Oldest Unsolved Murder May Be Solved
America's Oldest Unsolved Murder May Be Solved
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Jun 30, 2013 6:50 AM CDT

America's Oldest Unsolved Murder May Be Solved

Jamestown researchers think they've identified remains

(Newser) - Colonial America's oldest unsolved mystery involved remains that have been known only as "JR102C," or "JR" for short, but their owner's true name may have finally been uncovered. The bones were found, buried in a coffin, under an old roadbed in Jamestown in 1996, WTKR...

Girl's Skeleton Confirms Cannibalism at Jamestown

Scientists say her remains bear evidence

(Newser) - Scientists say they have the first physical evidence of a grisly truth from Jamestown: Colonists in the brutal winter of 1609 resorted to cannibalism, reports USA Today . Anthropologists studying the partial remains of a teenage girl—including her skull, jaw, and leg bone—say they bear the unmistakable marks of...

Discarded Oysters Show Colonists Suffered Drought

Finding bears out old Jamestown histories

(Newser) - Amazing what poking through the trash reveals, even if it's a few hundred years old. Scientists studying oysters discarded by the early settlers of Jamestown, Virginia, have concluded that the colonists suffered through a horrible drought, reports BBC . The oysters were high in salt, meaning the James River where they...

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