Researchers say they’ve found more evidence of Lost Colony
English settlers disappeared from Roanoke Island in 1587
WINDSOR, N.C. — Archaeologists researching the country’s mysterious first settlers known as the Lost Colony say they’ve uncovered a second location in Bertie County where at least one English family lived among the natives.
The new dig site, dubbed “Site Y,” has yielded English pottery pieces that date from the 1580s, according to a release from the First Colony Foundation, the nonprofit organization doing the work. The pieces come from jugs and pots used for food preparation, consumption and storage, indicating long-term habitation.
On property owned by Bertie County, the area is roughly one acre and includes 72 dig locations that are 5 square feet apiece.
Evidence recovered at the site indicates about a dozen people from at least one family from the Lost Colony lived there, and possibly some servants, said Phil Evans, president of the First Colony Foundation.
One competing archaeological group, however, says it’s unlikely that Lost Colony members lived in Bertie County and that the English pottery could have ended up there from trading with the natives.
The Lost Colony was a group of more than 100 English settlers who disappeared from Roanoke Island in 1587. Historians and archaeologists have been trying to determine what happened to them since. Included among theories posed over the years: they were killed by a hostile tribe, disease, or storms; or they relocated.
Some archaeologists initially zeroed in on Bertie County because a map from the 1580s appeared to show a fort there. They found one site that revealed English artifacts from early settlers, then discovered the second location nearby with the help of ground-penetrating radar.
The First Colony Foundation is a nonprofit group made up of a team of archaeologists and historians researching Sir Walter Raleigh’s attempts to establish the English settlement in the New World.
The Site Y artifacts add another layer to sometimes conflicting theories on what happened to the colony.
Weeks after the group arrived in the New World, the colony’s governor, John White, left to get more supplies from England. However, a war between the English and Spanish prevented White from returning for three years. When he got back, the colony had disappeared.
One of the clues left behind
was the letters “CROATOAN” carved on a palisade post, a possible reference to the friendly Croatoan tribe that lived about 50 miles south on what’s now Hatteras Island. White had told the colony to leave a message if they needed to leave.
He never found the colony, returned to England and died a few years later.
Researchers disagree on what happened to those he left behind.
The First Colony foundation contends that White’s group must have dispersed into smaller ones. A single area or tribe could not have supported an additional 100 or so English people, its experts say.
“Possibly, a small group went to Croatoan Island in the fall or winter of 1587 to wait for John White to return while the remainder moved inland to the mouth of the Chowan River and
Salmon Creek,” First Colony board member James Horn said in the release.
Another research group, the Croatoan Archaeological Society, disagrees, contending the entire colony assimilated with the Croatoans on Hatteras Island.
“Bertie was the heart of enemy territory,” Scott Dawson, who founded the Croatoan Archaeological Society said in an email. “It is the last place they would go. The colony literally wrote down they relocated to Croatoan.”
Dawson has written a book called “The Lost Colony and Hatteras Island” that gives compelling archaeological and historical evidence that the group moved to Hatteras Island.
The First Colony Foundation began focusing on Bertie County in 2012. It excavated a small area there, found English and native artifacts and named it “Site X.”
The organization’s work at Site X led researchers to Site Y, located nearby in a field on higher ground and with more fertile soil better suited for settlement.
Site X pottery indicated a short-term stay, while Site Y yielded pieces of a Martincamp flask and a Spanish olive jar, among others, that reveal a longer habitation, Evans said. They matched items found at Fort Raleigh Historic Site on Roanoke Island where the Lost Colony first landed, he said. They are also similar to items found in Jamestown.
Archaeologists also have uncovered artifacts that indicate the location of a native village near both dig sites.
They believe it is Mettaquem, a native town identified on early English maps.
Site X and the native village site lie within a state park of about 1,000 acres set on Salmon Creek, a tributary of the Chowan River. Site Y sits within 137 acres of county property.