Paul Green's The Lost Colony
begins when the actor portraying the historian
steps upon the stage of the Waterside Theater to evoke the memory of Sir Walter
Raleigh's Roanoke colonists. He reminds the audience that events portrayed actually
took place all around where they are sitting. Although this historian is one of
the cast of the celebrated outdoor drama, he is paralleled by a real life, present
day, blue ribbon team of archaeologists and historians continuing the search into
the mysteries of the Roanoke Colonies.
and supported by the First Colony Foundation, a North Carolina non-profit organization,
this team continues in 2008 a program of ongoing archaeological and historical research
focusing on the Roanoke Voyages. First Colony Foundation is conducting multi-disciplinary
research that combines highly technological remote sensing with the traditional
excavation of terrestrial archaeology, diving of underwater archaeology, and careful
reading of archival research.
In the bleak winter months of 2008, First Colony archaeologist Dr. Eric Klingelhofer
brought experts from Witten Technologies from Tallahassee, Florida, to Fort Raleigh
to conduct ground penetrating radar surveys between the theater entrance and the
parking lot. The advanced capacity of the Witten radar tomography techniques allows
archaeologist to see a "virtual excavation" -- an almost x-ray quality, vertical
video of what is below your feet.
Another of First Colony's archaeologists, Nick Luccketti, put the finishing touches
on the final report of excavations funded by the Bloedorn Foundation of Washington,
DC in the fall of 2006 between the theater parking lot and Roanoke Sound. Shoreline
erosion in that area had over time revealed artifacts from the time of the Lost
Colony. Several pottery sherds with a green interior glaze datable to the days of
Sir Walter Raleigh have been found along the shore a short distance from the theater.
Although styled "Spanish olive jars" by archaeologists today, these wares were used
as containers for a variety of items in addition to olive oil and widely distributed
by trade in the late 16th century. The shallow sound waters in the same area have
also exposed the remains of what are thought to be the wooden casings of rain barrels
or early wells. Carbon dating by the National Park Service has identified the wood
to the time of the Raleigh colonies as well. First Colony test excavations uncovered
examples of the pottery made by the original inhabitants of the Outer Banks, the
Roanokes and Croatoans, and believed traded to the English colonists.
2008 saw Klingelhofer and Luccketti
leading another season of test excavation at Fort Raleigh. That year the concentration
was on Ground Penetrating Radar targets identified in the Witten Technologies data
and through National Park Service research in the area of the Thomas Hariot Nature
Trail. This area had already revealed traces of Elizabethan activity in limited
tests in 1995, so it was hoped that more evidence of the Roanoke colonies could
be found there. And it was. With the assistance of archaeologists from Oregon Public
Broadcasting's upcoming series "Time Team American," First Colony opened an area
where remains from the late 16th through early 18th centuries were found in undisturbed
contexts. Artifacts recovered in this area include sizeable pieces of Algonquian
tobacco pipes and pottery, fragments of French ceramic flasks and metallurgist's
crucible, Venetian white glass trade beads, wrought nails, and an entire necklace
of copper squares that was likely the elaborate personal ornament of a Roanoke Indian.
Late in 2008 First Colony archaeologist Clay Swindell, under the direction of Nick
Luccketti, continued survey testing in the area of the Hariot Trail and he has found
a site from dating from 1680 through about 1730, which appears to be the earliest
archaeological evidence of the permanent European resettlement of the island a century
after the Lost Colony.
Gordon Watts and his team of underwater
archaeologists continued their research dives in Roanoke Sound and Shallowbag Bay
in both 2006 and 2007. Although all the targets examined by them so far have revealed
only material dating from the time of the Civil War or later, there are many targets
still to be examined in areas of expected colonial activity. Their research is expected
to resume in Broad Creek near Wanchese during 2009.
First Colony Foundation historians and board members are also supporting further
historical research into the mysteries of the Roanoke colonies, including the Lost
Colony. Roanoke Island Historical Association historian Lebame Houston is joining
with Dr. Jim Horn of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and William S. Powell,
UNC's emeritus professor of North Carolina history in this important initiative.
Dr. Horn is currently assessing a large collection of documents gathered from Spanish
archives in the past few years by National Park Service historian Milagros Flores.
In the summer of 2009 Dr. Horn is scheduled to be working in London and Dublin to
see if Anglican Church records in those cities hold more clues to the mystery. These
research efforts may eventually tell us more about both the origins of such colonists
as Eleanor and Ananias Dare, as well as what may have happened to them and their
famous daughter Virginia.