2. ‘It is not wise for us to uncover the nakedness
of our forefathers.’1
Jamestown, where England first gained a per-
manent if precarious toehold in the New World by
depositing a fractious group of gentlemen, boys,
labourers and ex-soldiers on the shores of a modest
island inland from the Chesapeake Bay in 1607, is
perhaps the most archaeologically investigated
historic site in North America (Figs 1–2). Since
the 1890s, trowels, shovels, bulldozers, and even
dynamite have been employed to shift tons of
Jamestown soil in search of the roots of a country.
Thousands of artefacts were extracted from the
earth, the crumbling remains of nearly 100 build-
ings exposed to curious eyes — even the river was
dredged in the hunt for John Smith’s legacy.
For over 100 years, the scant physical traces of
this early English colonial settlement have been
accorded a status and significance arguably far
beyond the information provided about the lived
experiences of those newcomers and natives who
once trod the same muddy soil now deemed sacred.
Archaeology has of course always played a signi-
ficant role in the construction and validation of
cultural mythology. In the case of Jamestown, it
is instructive to dissect the created history of the
settlement, and the role of archaeology in that
construction, as we endeavour to employ the same
archaeological evidence to formulate a more bal-
anced understanding of the 17th-century colonial
experience.
Beyond unearthing a significant portion of
3. the 17th-century settlement, the major archaeo-
logical initiatives sponsored by the United States
National Park Service in the 1930s and 1950s
aided in legitimizing, publicizing, and popularizing
archaeological investigations of the post-
European contact phase of North American his-
tory. Archaeologist Jean C. ‘Pinky’ Harrington,
who directed archaeological work at Jamestown
from 1936 until the 1940s, himself noted that
‘Jamestown archaeology had a significant impact
upon the development of historical archaeology in
this country’.2 Despite this disciplinary impact,
prior to the 1990s, there was relatively little critical
examination of the vast quantity of recovered
materials.
2 AUDREY HORNING
The impending 2007 quadricentennial anni-
versary of Jamestown’s founding spurred major
new projects undertaken by the two organizations
which administer Jamestown Island, the Associa-
tion for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities
(APVA, now known as APVA–Preservation
Virginia) and the United States National Park
Service, part of the Department of the Interior.
The projects include the APVA-sponsored
Jamestown Rediscovery, which relies upon inten-
sive excavations to uncover evidence of the earliest
years of the colony on the 22.5 acre (9.1ha) island
property owned by the private organization.
This ongoing project, discussed in detail elsewhere
in this volume, is not only capturing a public
4. imagination through local and national media,
interpretive programs, and a popular website and
publications, but is materially adding to our
understanding of the experiences of the colony’s
settlers in its initial years.3
The second project, the Jamestown Archaeo-
logical Assessment, was sponsored by the National
Park Service and carried out between 1992 and
1997 via a cooperative agreement with the Colo-
nial Williamsburg Foundation and the College of
William and Mary. The interdisciplinary Assess-
ment relied upon the skills of individuals trained
in archaeology, historical research, architectural
history, bibliography, material culture research,
Geographic Information Systems, marine science,
FIG. 1
Location of Jamestown
(Colonial Williamsburg
Foundation).
CONSTRUCTING JAMESTOWN 3
geology, microstratigraphy, geophysics, palyno-
logy, dendrochronology, archaeobotany, climato-
logy and even replicative ceramic technology
to compile a holistic evaluation of the cultural
resources (prehistoric and historic) present upon
the 1,500-acre publicly-owned portion of James-
town Island — an evaluation framing future
research and interpretation.4 The scope of the
Assessment was based on the National Park
5. Service’s Systemwide Archaeological Inventory
Program, which discouraged excavations in favour
of in situ preservation, challenging the Assessment
team to find a creative and effective means of
assessing cultural resources. When the project
began in 1992, storage cabinets were already burs-
ting with material from the earlier efforts, some of
which were still patiently waiting to be catalogued.
A primary goal was to capitalize upon the vast
legacy of the previous investigations, spending
time to analyze data carefully rather than rushing
to unearth more material.5
In the past, discovery often served as an end
in and of itself, with the significance of the find
effectively scaled upon its chronology. Not sur-
prisingly, throughout each archaeological explora-
tion of Jamestown, structures and features were
interpreted as dating to time periods much earlier
than they in fact dated, while the opposite rarely
FIG. 2
Aerial view of Jamestown Island (Colonial National Historical
Park).
4 AUDREY HORNING
occurred.6 As a result of this ‘earlier is better’ bias,
coupled with the survival of Virginia Company
records and early narratives, much more is known
about the first seventeen years of Jamestown’s
existence during the Virginia Company period
6. (1607–24) than about the subsequent 75 years of
the colonial capital’s existence.7 While the present
excavations in search of James Fort are shedding
critical new light upon life and industry during
the Company period, the vast majority of
Jamestown’s excavated 17th-century remains are
post-1625, with most of those remains dating to
the second half of the century.
An understanding of the development of the
later town in its broader Atlantic context, as well
as of its ultimate abandonment as Virginia’s colo-
nial capital in favour of Williamsburg in 1699,
emerged through the careful reconsideration of the
archaeology in the 13-acre (5.2ha) ‘New Towne’
area, east of the 1607 fort site.8 Settlement in this
part of the island was initiated in the 1620s, and
punctuated by three periods of intensive develop-
ment effort. The first push occurred in the 1630s,
when Governor John Harvey sponsored the first of
a series of acts designating Jamestown as sole port
of entry for the colony, and also offered incentives
to build in the town. The second major push fol-
lowed the 1662 Act for Towns, instructing colonial
leaders to ‘build a town at Jamestown’. Thirty-two
brick houses of uniform dimensions — 20x40 feet
(6.1x12.2m) in plan — were to be constructed
at the expense of each county, with individuals
undertaking construction to be compensated liber-
ally.9 The third push, in the 1680s, reflected the
need to rebuild following the burning of numerous
structures during Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676, when
Nathaniel Bacon and his followers challenged the
colonial government over the issue of westward
expansion.
7. Assessment excavations in the townsite were
designed to address specific research questions,
were limited in extent, and chiefly involved only
the removal of ploughzone and previous archaeo-
logical backfill to expose intact deposits.10 Old field
notes, drawings, and artefact collections were re-
examined, quantified, and re-quantified to redress
chronological and other inconsistencies.11 Pre-
viously, the story of Jamestown’s development and
ultimate abandonment presented a conundrum to
scholars viewing the town in a solely American
context. Either the town was interpreted as a
brave American city attempting to rival ‘Oxford,
Chipping Camden, or even the Great London her-
self’, or it was dismissed as a ‘conspicuous failure’
and ignored in the literature.12 While the Tidewater
settlement system, founded upon dispersed
tobacco plantations, clearly did not encourage the
growth or even maintenance of towns, it was not
for lack of trying. Although Jamestown was never
a metropolis, it was not a complete figment of
colonial imagination. Jamestown remained ‘the
principal seat of government in England’s largest
overseas colony for 92 years. Even if residents
occasionally grew tobacco in the streets, the town
must have functioned tolerably well’.13 Through-
out the 17th century, town building at Jamestown
progressed much as it did in England, reflected in
the adherence to a generalized town plan orga-
nized along a simple rectangular grid demarcated
by two streets; the increased use of fire-preventive
building material such as brick; and the reliance
upon individual speculators to finance construc-
tion projects. Some of Jamestown’s most active
speculators, particularly John Harvey, William
8. Berkeley, and Philip Ludwell, were well aware on a
personal level of the profits being made by their
contemporaries in England.14 Despite the shift of
the capital in 1699, Jamestown was never wholly
abandoned. Many buildings continued to be occu-
pied well into the 1720s, and Jamestown continued
to serve as a port of entry even after the whole of
the Island fell into the hands of two families, the
Amblers and the Travises.
The two projects, Jamestown Rediscovery
and the Jamestown Archaeological Assessment,
have broadened, and are broadening, understand-
ing of the archaeology of Jamestown Island in its
local, regional and global context, yet all those
involved in the presentation of the heritage of
the Island still face a considerable challenge.
The challenge lies not so much in reassessing the
significance of the site in the light of new and
revised findings, but recasting and re-imagining
Jamestown’s public meaning as the 2007 quadri-
centennial anniversary of Jamestown’s founding is
commemorated. To consider the presentation and
significance of Jamestown archaeology in the 21st
century means revisiting the constructed history
and popular meanings of the ill-fated settlement in
the centuries following its abandonment.
JAMESTOWN: FROM ‘CITTIE’ TO SITE
‘. . . the germ of our mighty nation was first
planted — here took root, and from hence
has continued to grow and spread . . .’15
As early as 1707, just eight years after the capital
was shifted from the failing town of Jamestown
9. to nearby Middle Plantation, soon to be renamed
Williamsburg, celebrants flocked to the island to
commemorate the 1607 settlement. Nineteenth-
century commemorative events attracted record
crowds, albeit of those participants who have
CONSTRUCTING JAMESTOWN 5
been identified, ‘nearly all were male, and all but
one was white’.16 A bicentennial celebration on
Jamestown Island in 1807 was described as an
‘immense assembly which was convened on the
plains of Jamestown’.17 May of 1822 saw an appar-
ently overzealous crowd, reportedly numbering
thousands, descend upon the island from five
steamboats and 35 other vessels and small crafts,
to celebrate the 1607 landing. Observer John
Jacquelin Ambler noted that the swarms of visitors
at this particular celebration ‘burnt down one of
the two large brick houses on the island and broke
the tombstones into fragments and scattered them
over the face of the earth so that the whole island
exhibited one wide spread field of desolation’.18
Preparations for a celebration in 1857
included the construction of a 175ft (53m)-long
refreshment saloon and a 500 seat dining hall on
the island, which reportedly served passengers
from thirteen steamboats who were treated to
speeches by former President John Tyler and
Virginia Governor Henry Wise.19 With rampant
enthusiasm, if not quite respect, one celebrant at
this 250th commemoration ‘cracked off a suitable
chunk from one of the old slabs’ in the churchyard,
10. while others, apparently, ‘contented themselves
with a brickbat apiece’.20 After the American
Civil War, interest in Jamestown appears to have
increased rather than decreased, with steamboats
running daily excursions from Richmond and
Norfolk to the historic site.21 Celebrations attract-
ing thousands of people took place in 1877 and
again in 1895. As the 1907 tercentennial of the
founding of Jamestown approached, major efforts
were mounted on the island itself and on Sewell’s
Point in Norfolk, where land was purchased for a
grand exposition.
The romantic appeal of this never-quite for-
gotten English town culminated in the donation of
a 22.5 acre (9.1ha) portion of the island in 1893 by
island owners Edward and Louise Barney to the
Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiq-
uities (APVA), whose members sought to preserve
the site as ‘the Mecca of all true worshippers of a
free government’.22 The donated property included
the ruined brick church tower constructed some
time after the completion of the first brick church
in 1647, the most visible trace of the 17th-century
settlement. One of the first important efforts
undertaken by the APVA was the stabilization of
the shoreline where portions of the Island had
clearly eroded into the James River. While the
FIG. 3
Jamestown: excavation at Structure 17 in the 1930s (Colonial
National Historical Park).
11. 6 AUDREY HORNING
sea wall was under construction, APVA founder
Mary Jeffrey Galt directed archaeological work
on the church site.23 Following all the enthusiastic
pilgrimages of the 19th century, the APVA appar-
ently had quite a job in restoring the churchyard.
While Galt, reflecting the sentiment of the day,
initially blamed the damage upon Yankee soldiers
in the Civil War, she also admitted that the grave-
stones ‘have been destroyed by rude hands and
broken into pieces by relic hunters’.24 Even the
graves had been disturbed. Galt was aided in
her archaeological and preservation activities in
the churchyard by John Tyler Jr, son of Virginia
historian and College of William and Mary presi-
dent Lyon G. Tyler, and Colonel Samuel Yonge.
During his construction of a sea wall along the
eroding Jamestown shoreline, Yonge noted the
remains of a brick cellar eroding into the river,
inspiring him to excavate and cap the foundations
of the row of terrace structures which later became
known as the Ludwell Statehouse Group (now
known as Structure 144).25
APVA members geared up for the 1907 ter-
centennial celebration by digging up more founda-
tions, planting gardens, commissioning statues of
Pocahontas and John Smith, and reconstructing
the brick church. As noted by cultural historian
James Lindgren, much of the APVA activity can
be directly linked to a post-Civil War reactionary
impulse. Tradition-minded white Protestant
Virginians scrambled to celebrate and preserve the
Virginia past in such a manner as to prove that
12. ‘the Old Dominion had founded the nation,
established representative government, instituted
racial order through slavery, and stood for civility
and grace’, attempting to ‘win through monu-
ments and pamphlets what Lee had lost at
Appomattox’.26 In their battle to wrest the seat of
American history from the hands of New England-
ers, the APVA particularly venerated Virginia
and the Old South as the most appropriate model
for the nation, flying in the face of post-Civil War
devastation, the growth of industries and the
impact of non-Protestant immigration to northern
cities.
Having ‘consciously molded traditionalism
to reflect their contemporary world’, the APVA
legitimated and celebrated ‘traditional values,
capitalist economics, and conservative politics’
at the turn of the 20th century.27 The material sym-
bolism of this view of Virginia’s past can still be
read in the extant early APVA historic landscape
at Jamestown — from the reconstructed church
serving as a powerful and tangible reminder of
America’s Protestant roots, to the sanctification of
Jamestown’s material remains through use of the
term ‘Relic House’ for an exhibit building. Of the
various statues placed around the APVA property
at Jamestown in 1907, none remains more popular
with visitors than the statue of Pocahontas, daugh-
ter to the paramount chief of the Powhatan
chiefdom. The Pocahontas statue clearly symbol-
izes the ascendancy of western civilization, legiti-
mized by this one young Native American woman
who adopted a new culture — thereby providing
fodder for storytellers and film-makers for centu-
13. ries to come, while concomitantly muting the com-
plexity of Powhatan–English relations during the
brief lifetime of Pocahontas. That the celebratory
landscape of 1907 still appeals to visitors is testa-
ment to the way Jamestown continues to be viewed
by some as a national shrine, ultimately revealing
much more about the Jamestown of 1907 than the
Jamestown of the 1600s.
Shifting to the portion of the island admini-
stered by the National Park Service, the 13-acre
townsite presents a serene, peaceful aspect, charac-
terized by carefully mown fields of grass separated
by the occasional ditch or fence, with here and
there whitewashed interpretive bricks purporting
to outline on the ground surface the plan of exca-
vated foundations below.28 Looming over the quiet
fields of grass and low brick sketches is the teeter-
ing shell of the burnt-out 18th-century Ambler
plantation house, matched in prominence further
to the west by the APVA’s 1907 tercentenary
monument, a replica of the Washington Monu-
ment. Despite its physical prominence, the Ambler
house still presents an awkward conundrum for
public interpretation, as the structure is far too late
to appeal to those seeking the footsteps of John
Smith and Pocahontas. Yet its physicality links to
the broader story of race relations in the British
colonial enterprise. The river front land that
became part of the vast Ambler plantation in the
18th century witnessed the first arrival of African
servants to the Virginia administrative centre
in 1619, when Governor George Yeardley and
Jamestown merchant Abraham Peirsey conspired
to purchase the labour of the newest arrivals ‘at the
best and easiest rate they could’.29 By the end of the
14. 17th century, when Jamestown’s official functions
transferred to Williamsburg, race-based slavery
for life was common. By the end of the next cen-
tury, all lands on Jamestown Island were consoli-
dated into two tobacco plantations founded upon
the labour of enslaved African Americans, with the
Ambler house at the centre of one of those plan-
tations. On the eve of 20 October 1862, in the
midst of the American Civil War, long simmering
tensions erupted on the Ambler plantation, then
owned and managed by William Allen. A group of
enslaved men captured Allen’s overseer and his
nephew, placed them ‘on trial’, and ultimately
CONSTRUCTING JAMESTOWN 7
killed the two men.30 The violence, inhumanity,
and contradictions of the institution of American
slavery are an inherent, if seldom mentioned, part
of the Jamestown story.
The peace of today’s island is difficult to
reconcile with the three-dimensional and often
grim actuality of the historic events being memori-
alized. Perhaps Mary Jeffries Galt sensed the same
contradiction between the presentation of a serene
and well-tended site with the historical reality of
17th-century Jamestown when, in the 1890s, she
unsuccessfully fought to retain the then overgrown
and unmanicured landscape of the APVA pro-
perty, which she felt ‘looked so lovely and natural’.
Galt firmly believed that ‘dignity and solemnity
must cloth[e] the ruins — and there must always
be a pathetic and romantic idea . . . and the old
15. place altogether must not look modernly smart’.31
Galt’s hopes for retaining the overgrown land-
scape on the APVA property were similarly lost
to the view of Jamestown committee chair Mary
Minor Lightfoot. Lightfoot’s vision for the APVA
land far exceeded the manicured look of the
Barney farm so unacceptable to Galt. In an activity
repeated countless times at newly acquired historic
properties, Lightfoot enthusiastically planted
flowers, herbs and shrubs ‘as are found in old
gardens of colonial homes throughout Virginia’.32
As the APVA transformed their corner of the
island in preparation for 1907, the Barney family
apparently hired workmen of their own to exca-
vate structures in New Towne. The extent of their
digging is unclear, although a Virginia Gazette
article in 1893 enthusiastically reported that ‘the
workmen employed on Jamestown Island have
recently made some very interesting discoveries’,
including a series of brick foundations inexplicably
described as ‘subterranean passages . . . used as a
means of escaping from the Indians’.33 The follow-
ing year, 40 workmen were apparently employed
at various tasks on the Barney property, including
marsh reclamation, and interest was expressed
in funding the work through the sale of historic
Jamestown bricks at the Chicago World’s Fair, for
the then exorbitant sum of one dollar apiece.34
The Barneys or their workmen most certainly
excavated the easternmost unit of the three-unit
terrace structure known as Structure 17, as the
archaeologists and architectural historians who
excavated the rest of the building in the 1930s
16. noted that one cellar had been left open.35
Additionally, Structure 117, a pre-1650 dwelling in
FIG. 4
Jamestown: Forman’s ‘potholing’ excavation technique
(Colonial National Historical Park).
8 AUDREY HORNING
the western portion of New Towne, was partially
excavated by Louise Barney, daughter of Colonel
and Mrs Barney. As wryly noted by Jamestown
archaeologist J.C. Harrington, these antiquarian
excavations were designed ‘in order to unearth
anything that lay hidden’ — thus encapsulating the
‘objectives for most of the subsequent excavating
at Jamestown over the next 50 years’.36 As the pace
of amateur archaeology at Jamestown increased,
and in the midst of all of the preparations for the
1907 celebration, the nation took its first step in
securing the preservation of Federally-owned
historic resources by passing the 1906 Antiquities
Act, which established the precedent for the later
federal acquisition of all but the APVA-owned
land of Jamestown Island.
Prior to government acquisition of the
Barneys’ portion of the Island in 1934 and its sub-
sequent incorporation with the Yorktown Revolu-
tionary War battlefield as Colonial National
Historical Park in 1936, yet another antiquarian
excavated at Jamestown. George C. Gregory, a
17. banker and amateur historian from Richmond,
uncovered and measured the top of the remaining
foundations of Structure 17, first excavated by the
Barneys (Fig. 3). In 1932, Gregory published his
findings with the confident assertion that: ‘three
brick houses, 20x40 feet each, jointly were called
the first brick statehouse.’37 Gregory’s theory that
the structure represented the first brick statehouse
was remarkably persistent, finally put to rest as a
result of archaeological and documentary investi-
gations on the structure in 1993.38 Renewed study
revealed that two of the three houses were con-
structed around 1662, in response to a government
building initiative, with a third added at a later
date. Excavation in 1993 unearthed a cellar hole
for an incomplete fourth unit. The emerging story
of Structure 17 is of a row built not for an official
government function, but in part by property
speculators in response to the 1662 Act for Towns.
However, the speculators probably reaped little
profit from buildings which endured a series
of fires and were marred by the presence of the
gaping, refuse-filled, cellar hole of an abandoned
dwelling.39 No longer an iconic ruin associated
with the birth of American democracy, Structure
17 instead serves as a potent reminder of the uncer-
tainties as well as expectations of urban life in the
New World — expectations clearly based upon an
awareness of contemporary town development
and property speculation in 17th-century England
and, to some extent, Ulster.40 The degree to which
17th-century colonists, in particular those in the
southern colonies, were intimately connected with
English affairs (or perceived themselves to be so)
has been downplayed because of the continual
18. emphasis upon understanding the roots of a
national culture presumed to be in existence at
Jamestown.
FEDERAL ARCHAEOLOGY AT
JAMESTOWN: THE 1930s
Archaeology at Jamestown had its true genesis
in the 1930s, when the National Park Service
sponsored a massive excavation initiative as part
of New Deal activities. Immediately upon govern-
ment acquisition of all but the APVA portion of
Jamestown Island, excavations were begun with
vigour, if not much forethought, under the
auspices of the Historic Sites Act of 1935. The
mandate given to a sizeable pool of Civilian
Conservation Corps (CCC) workers, unemployed
architects, engineers, architectural historians, and
archaeologists, was simply to unearth as many
buildings as possible. As noted by Harrington,
‘It is easy to say that the project got off on the
wrong foot, but what other foot was there in
1934?’41 From the start, there was antagonism
between the two teams of investigators involved
in the project. One group was led by architectural
historian Henry Chandlee Forman, the other by
archaeologist H. Summerfield Day. Forman was
of the opinion that only an architectural historian
was capable of understanding an historic struc-
ture, and imposed a rule that the archaeologists
could not come any closer than three feet (0.9m) to
a structure. While architects hired to unearth 18th-
century structures in nearby Williamsburg began
archaeological studies by excavating narrow
trenches every five feet (1.5m) placed diagonally
across the town grid, Forman elected a more
19. random strategy of site discovery at Jamestown
(cf. Fig. 4). Round shovel tests were excavated at
no particular intervals, and their locations were
not recorded. Architect John T. Zaharov, who
also worked on the restoration of Williamsburg,
described the excavation procedure:
Test holes about 18qin [0.45m] diameter and
spaced about 1p 0q [0.3m] apart were dug in
honeycomb fashion to the solid un-disturbed
clay bed in order to locate the areas of
buried foundations, traces of foundations, or
deposits of interesting material.42
The impact of this method, and the distur-
bance it caused, continues to plague archaeologi-
cal investigations at Jamestown. Whenever brick
foundations were hit by virtue of the fortuitous
placing of a shovel test, excavation concentrated
upon exposing the full structure without regard
to cultural materials. Exposing the foundations
CONSTRUCTING JAMESTOWN 9
meant digging around the entire exterior of the
structures, effectively destroying evidence of build-
ing trenches and construction sequences. Despite
the rapid pace of site examination, most structures
were generally drawn quite accurately by archi-
tects Fred P. Parris and John T. Zaharov as part
of the Historic American Buildings Survey,
established in December 1933.43
As Forman’s crew were digging shovel tests
20. and recording buildings, Day’s archaeological
team was likewise searching for traces of bygone
Jamestown. Unlike Forman, and unlike the
Williamsburg architects, they dug 10ft (3m)-wide
trenches throughout the townsite, enabling them
to discern non-structural features such as wells,
boundary ditches and fencelines. The careful study
of the maps made of these 100ft lots suggest the
presence of previously unrecognized earthfast
buildings in the western end of the townsite.44 As
revealed by the Jamestown Rediscovery project,
some buildings constructed within the original fort
had earthfast foundations.45 Even after the settle-
ment expanded into New Towne, brick was not
the preferred construction material. In 1625, the
existence of 33 dwellings and three warehouses
was recorded for Jamestown.46 The dwellings were
almost undoubtedly of post construction, particu-
larly in the light of a 1623 complaint by Captain
Nathaniel Butler that Jamestown’s ‘howses are
generally the worst that I saw ever, the meanest
cottages in England being in every way equall’. In
response, Jamestown’s planters asserted that their
houses ‘were built for use and not for ornament’,
and they also insisted that their houses were far
superior to English labourers’ houses.47 The four
post-in-ground structures previously recorded for
17th-century Jamestown (Structures 22, 41, 71–7
and 116) can represent only the merest fraction of
those that must once have existed in the settlement.
This lack of known post buildings at Jamestown
has not surprisingly influenced continued interpre-
tation of the assumed elite nature to the settlement
when compared with lifestyles found elsewhere
in the Chesapeake. Although challenged in many
quarters, the argument put forth by Carson et al.
21. in the landmark 1981 article ‘Impermanent
Architecture in the Southern American Colonies’,
that the reliance upon earthfast construction
reflects the uncertainties of tobacco cultivation
and an appallingly high mortality rate, remains
influential and renders Jamestown’s brick build-
ings seemingly anomalous.48
Following the complete disintegration of
working relations between the architects and the
archaeologists, almost the entire staff was replaced
in 1936. Archaeologist Jean C. Harrington, who
had experience in recording historic structures,
headed up the new team of excavators, aided by
archaeologist Conrad Bentzen. Artefacts con-
tinued to be curated by Worth Bailey, the only
member of the original team retained. From the
tremendous amount of excavation that occurred
between 1934 and 1936, a vast amount of material
culture was, not surprisingly, unearthed by the
predominantly African-American CCC workers
labouring for the two teams of architects and
archaeologists. All the artefacts the men encoun-
tered were cleaned and catalogued, but before
Harrington’s arrival they were sorted by type,
and not by context. No artefact excavated at
Jamestown between 1934 and 1936 can be linked
with the structure or feature from whence it came.
In the field, Harrington began retaining artefacts
by context, and continued the trenching technique
employed by Day. Harrington also advocated
public interpretation of archaeology, today a
major aspect of archaeology taking place in any
National Park.49
22. The ruins uncovered in the 1930s continued to
be celebrated not for what they were, but for what
they represented: monuments from what would
later be dubbed ‘the village where Western civiliza-
tion took root’.50 To Henry Chandlee Forman,
and undoubtedly to many members of the public,
Jamestown was a ‘buried city of romance’.51 The
perceived significance of Jamestown’s remains
lay in their early nature, exemplified in one case by
the touting of a retraced early road known as the
‘Great Road’ as the ‘earliest highway used and
developed by the English at Jamestown’.52 Inter-
pretations of the trade and communication
network represented by the ‘earliest highway’ were
secondary. Lamenting in 1946 that ‘Jamestown
should mean more to us than John Smith and
Pocahontas’, Harrington went on to describe
what, for him, was the driving question about
Jamestown:
What was the challenge of the new land
which developed a people with ideas and
ideals which created the economic wealth of
the Virginia plantations, the political inde-
pendence evidenced in the representative
assembly and the overthrow of royal gover-
nors, the urge to push on and across the
mountains and found new empires? These are
the things we wonder about when we stand in
reverent silence beside the ivy-colored [sic]
walls of the old church tower at Jamestown.53
For Harrington, Jamestown was a sacred site
because of its links to the founding of a nation.
Understanding the archaeology of Jamestown was
a way in which to understand the meaning and
23. process of becoming American.
10 AUDREY HORNING
World War II put a stop to excavations
at Jamestown. No excavations were attempted
again until 1948, when Glasshouse Point, on the
mainland, was investigated for traces of the
glassmaking industry attempted in 1608, and later
revived in the 1620s. Harrington again conducted
this work, aided by Charles Hatch’s historical
research.54 Prior to this resumed activity, the time
had clearly come to evaluate the progress of the
National Park Service’s New Deal archaeological
activities. At a conference held at Jamestown
in 1946, a host of archaeologists, anthropologists,
historians, curators, educators and administrators
led by Harrington struggled to define and set
guidelines for the new discipline, which had
been created not as the result of any widespread
national concern with preserving and understand-
ing the physical traces of the nation’s historical
past, but as a relief employment effort. The goals
set forth in the conference included the founding
of a society of ‘antiquarians’, or ‘historian-
archaeologists’, the encouragement of report pub-
lication, the development of training programs,
and the creation of a clearing house and data bank
for information on identifying historic objects.55
Although it took another twenty years for the
Society for Historical Archaeology and the Society
for Post-Medieval Archaeology to be established,
answering one of the goals set forth in the 1946
Jamestown conference, the linkage between the
24. study of the documentary past and the examina-
tion of the physical remains of the past was clearly
acknowledged, in large part due to the struggles
of pioneer ‘historian-archaeologists’ such as J.C.
Harrington.
FEDERAL ARCHAEOLOGY AT
JAMESTOWN: THE 1950s
In anticipation of the 350th anniversary of the
founding of the Jamestown settlement, the govern-
ment again sponsored massive excavations, even
though many questions still existed over exactly
what to do with the vast quantities of material
unearthed by the 1930s work. Headed by archae-
ologist John Cotter, with archaeologists Edward
Jelks, Joel Shiner, Louis Caywood and Bruce
Powell, and with historians Charles Hatch and
J. Paul Hudson, the years of 1954–56 were spent
cross-trenching the town site, employing the 1930s
grid. Again, the impetus for the investigation
concentrated upon the discovery of buildings and
features to aid in park interpretation. The method
employed was the excavation of 2–3ft (0.6–0.9m)-
wide trenches along 50ft (15.2m) blocks which
ensured that brick structures could be pinpointed
and fully exposed. During that two year period,
Cotter and his team excavated 6 miles (9.6km) of
trenches throughout the 13-acre area of the town
site. Attention to stratigraphy and context played
a key role in the 1950s work, making it far more
possible today to interpret the archaeological
sites and their associated material dug in these
years than it is to interpret sites excavated in the
pre-Harrington period.
25. However, the selective method of sieving and
artefact retention employed in the 1950s renders
collection analysis problematic. Soil excavated
from the cross trenches was not sieved, although
observed artefacts of certain classes were retained.
Soil in and around foundations was generally
sieved, but not systematically. To ascertain the
nature of the recovery biases, samples of backfilled
soils from earlier excavations were re-excavated,
screened, and analyzed in the 1990s in order to
assess the analytical potential of Jamestown’s vast
artefact collection.56 Put crudely, small and ‘ugly’
artefacts are over-represented in the backfill and
under-represented in the collections. For example,
clay roofing tiles and local coarsewares — often
indistinguishable from one another — accounted
for 54% of artefacts recovered from 1950s backfill
at Refuse Pit One, a clay borrow pit filled with
refuse in the 1630s. Less than 0.1% of artefacts
recovered from the backfill were decorated ceram-
ics. In contrast, 4% of artefacts recovered from a
small sample of the intact pit layers were decorated
ceramics, while less than 8% were coarse earthen-
wares.57 The fact that decorated wares were
selected in the excavation process may seem
mundane, but this bias has enormous conse-
quences for analyses which may overstate the elite
nature of artefact assemblages.
The 1957 anniversary of the founding of
Jamestown inspired not just archaeological work
but also related documentary research and an
overwhelming concern with public interpretation.
In addition to the archaeological exhibits at the
1957 anniversary, a series of 23 historical booklets
26. was produced on subjects ranging from agri-
culture, architecture, religion, government and
domestic life. A new Visitor Center was erected
at Jamestown, displays were set up throughout
the townsite and the island, reconstruction paint-
ings were created by artist Sydney King based
upon Lawrence Kocher’s architectural interpreta-
tions, and the Commonwealth of Virginia created
a nearby living history display, which is now the
Jamestown Settlement Museum. Following the
pattern of interpretation set in the 19th century,
presentations of the archaeology emphasized the
national significance of the site, as exemplified by
CONSTRUCTING JAMESTOWN 11
the 1957 declaration by then British Ambassador
James Bryce that the founding of Jamestown was
one of the great events in the history of the
world — an event which is to be compared
for its momentous consequences with the
overthrow of the Persian Empire by
Alexander; with the destruction of Carthage
by Rome; with the conquest of Gaul by
Clovis; with the taking of Constantinople by
the Turks — one might almost say with the
discovery of America by Columbus.
While eschewing such celebratory rhetoric,
the Jamestown archaeological team nevertheless
emphasized the American, or proto-American,
aspects of the site in their interpretations. Writing
with Edward Jelks in American Antiquity in 1957,
27. Cotter stated:
If Jamestown as a study has any real value, it
is necessary to seek out, discover, and analyze
by every means possible how a new way of life
developing on this continent was to become
distinct from the European, how the spirit of
independence was fostered by necessity-born
innovations, self developed arts and crafts,
new homes, customs adapted to the new
environment — in all, a new outlook on life
which nurtured the inevitable seeds of
independence.58
The emphasis upon uncovering American roots
at Jamestown served to attract and interest an
audience of post-World War II Americans who
were in the throes of the burgeoning Cold War,
fearing a communist takeover and suspicious of
actions or statements which could be construed
as even remotely anti-American. Parallels could
easily be drawn by the public and by politicians
between the perceived success of the colonists in
conquering a vast New World and the fervent
hope of a present-day defeat of communism and
acceptance of American-style democracy through-
out the world. While the research questions focus-
ing upon the development of a new American
culture posed first by Harrington and later by
Cotter may be legitimate concerns, the emphasis
upon uncovering evidence of unique innovation
has inhibited our understanding of the broader
context of Jamestown’s remains, and perhaps our
understanding of early Virginia as well.
In 1958 the most significant piece of work
28. to emerge from the anniversary initiative, John
Cotter’s comprehensive report on archaeology in
the town site, Archaeological Investigations at
Jamestown Virginia with its accompanying base
map, was published. Not only did Cotter report on
his own findings in the townsite, but he also
attempted to interpret the discoveries of the 1930s,
often forced to base those interpretations upon
only the scantiest of clues. The accompanying
archaeological base map (Fig. 5), which includes
FIG. 5
Jamestown: archaeological base map (Cotter 1958).
12 AUDREY HORNING
features and structures unearthed at Jamestown, is
still the most basic tool used in understanding the
townsite. Although more recent archaeological
examination of Jamestown has made clearer the
limitations of the base map, the initial compilation
was a monumental task compounded by the inad-
equate recording of many of the sites examined in
the early 1930s.59
Despite Cotter’s excellent synthesis, full
analysis of the vast quantity of archaeological data
unearthed during the 1930s and 1950s excavations
was a task left unfinished, as admitted by Cotter
himself: ‘as in most initial efforts in the research
field — and appropriately at this star-crossed
settlement — fulfilment at Jamestown has often
fallen short of hope.’60 In a similar vein,
29. Harrington later noted that he was ‘concerned and
distressed by the fact that only a fraction of the
enormous archaeological potential of Jamestown
has been realized’.61 Despite the pessimism of
Jamestown’s archaeologists, their efforts and
reports significantly aided in the development of
the field of historical archaeology as a whole,
and at a local level inspired an entire field of
research devoted to the study of the 17th-century
Chesapeake.
Following the 1957 anniversary, archaeolo-
gical work at Jamestown ended. Curator J. Paul
Hudson was left with another tremendous collec-
tion of artefacts to sort out and care for. The
reconstructed above-ground foundations, placed
over archaeological features in preparation for the
1957 celebration, remained as the primary means
of interpreting the outlines of the Jamestown
settlement. While Jamestown archaeology is a
standard reference for examination of 17th-
century Chesapeake sites, few scholarly works
based specifically upon Jamestown material were
produced after the 1950s work. Until the 1990s, the
only exceptions were Kenneth Lewis’s 1975 disser-
tation on artefact patterning at Jamestown, and
a handful of postgraduate theses and artefact
studies.62
RECONSIDERING JAMESTOWN’S
ARCHAEOLOGY: 1992–PRESENT
As previously noted, the impending quadricen-
tennial celebration spurred two more archaeologi-
cal projects: Jamestown Rediscovery, and the
Jamestown Archaeological Assessment. While the
30. Rediscovery project continues to concentrate on
the early years of the colony through open area
excavation of the early fort, the remit for the
Assessment was to address the entirety of human
activity on the island, and to do so with limited
intrusion. In approaching the island as a whole,
discerning the impact of environmental change
became central. Geological study revealed that at
the time of initial human occupation c. 10,500 BP,
the James River, now two miles wide, was a mere
stream, and Jamestown Island not an island at
all.63 Systematic survey by the College of William
and Mary, directed by Dennis Blanton, pinpointed
58 previously unknown sites and allowed for an
integration of data on early native use of the island
in light of how these newly documented environ-
mental changes affected human subsistence, settle-
ment and social organization.64 Cores extracted
from swamps revealed buried agricultural fields,
while an examination of cypress tree rings carried
out by the University of Arkansas for the Assess-
ment pinpointed periods of drought over the last
1,000 years — including one in the first years of
English settlement that undoubtedly contributed
to the hardships experienced by the early settlers.65
Pollen, seed, and phytolith analysis provided the
basis for reconstructing plant communities and
human landscape use and alteration, and added
to the interpretation of individual archaeological
features.66
Although standard discussions of Jamestown
treat it as ignored by Virginia’s First People,
the island continued to be used seasonally until the
English arrival. In the early years of the colony,
31. Indians were not only frequent visitors to
Jamestown; their cultural landscape effectively
constrained and delimited the extent of English
power throughout much of the 17th century,
indicative of ‘native attempts to discipline the
colonists . . . and keep them in a client position’.67
Scholars are only beginning to recognise the extent
of control the Powhatan wielded over the early
colonists, an exercise of native power intentionally
masked in colonial transcripts, but physically
evident when one notes that later 17th-century
English colonial settlement in Virginia respected
the boundaries of what had been the Powhatan
world at the time of English arrival.68
In the townsite, reconsideration of James-
town’s brick buildings, including Structure 17,
revealed that plans for Jamestown’s growth
mirrored development efforts undertaken in
England. Jamestown’s planners logically expected
that by following the same speculative develop-
ment plans they would garner the same profits as
those acquired by their contemporaries. Yet the
plans were undermined by the dispersed settlement
pattern resultant from tobacco monoculture,
and the opposition of the Crown to attempts to
diversify and urbanize the Chesapeake region.
The attempts to develop Jamestown, evident in
the site’s archaeology, indicate the degree to which
CONSTRUCTING JAMESTOWN 13
colonists endeavoured to alter the restrictions
32. of their colonial situation in a culturally-bound
fashion, as in the face of repeated disappointment
they continued to apply an English model of
urbanization and to harbour dreams of emulating
the financial and social successes of English elites.69
Assessment efforts to reconstruct landholding
on the island in the post-Virginia Company
period relied in part upon a reconsideration of the
historic landscape. Prior to the re-evaluation of the
archaeology of New Towne, our understanding of
Jamestown was as a collection of isolated brick
buildings scattered across a landscape. Yet the
site is criss-crossed with ditches and punctuated
by pits, wells, road traces and fence lines. These
archaeological traces provide a window through
which to observe how the early colonists altered
and ordered their world, dividing properties,
draining fields, disposing of their rubbish, and
obtaining critical resources such as water and clay
for brick- and pottery-making. The 96 identified
ditches marked boundary lines, enclosed gardens
and livestock, carried away water and effluent,
drained swampy ground, demarcated busy streets,
and received all manner of human refuse.
These features are as important to understanding
Jamestown as are the more substantial traces of
dwellings, taverns, warehouses, and manufacto-
ries. Discerning the location of roads, of field and
property boundaries, of dumping grounds and
wells — in use and in abandonment — fills in
the ‘blank’ spaces between structures, the outdoor
spaces which witnessed constant activity in the
17th century, yet faded into relative uniformity
through the agricultural activities of the 18th, 19th
and early 20th centuries. These subsequent activi-
33. ties flattened the traces of the capital landscape,
eventually yielding to the serene, grassy fields and
mulberry and pecan groves of today’s New Towne.
Accurate dating, coupled with functional analysis
of these features, is the first step in any reconstruc-
tion of the landscape as it was observed and
experienced at different times during the historic
occupation of Jamestown’s New Towne.70 Fur-
thermore, as historical property reconstruction
relied heavily upon the presence of ditches and
fence lines to orientate and anchor documented
properties onto the ground, a clear understanding
of the features themselves became imperative.71
While the re-evaluation of construction
sequences for boundary ditches seems an unexcit-
ing if necessary task, in reality the effort yielded
poignant and provocative insights into cultural
relations in the 17th-century town. As the re-
analysis was being carried out, human skeletal
remains unearthed in previous excavations and
held in the National Park Service collections
were similarly being examined, to comply with the
provisions of the Native American Graves Protec-
tion and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). All poten-
tial Native American skeletal material (as well as
grave goods and objects of cultural patrimony)
held in Federal or Federally-funded institutions
had to be identified, and any culturally-affiliated
groups informed of their existence.72 One of the
skeletons re-examined by a team from the
Smithsonian Institution was HR10, a burial found
in association with two boundary ditches, Ditch 10
and Ditch 8, in 1940. HR10, a young man aged
approximately 23–7 at death, was subjected to
34. scientific analysis in the 1950s which identified him
as Native American.73 He had evidently suffered
from syphilis, but died from a gunshot wound to
the head. However, the reanalysis ‘proved that
this man was not Native American as previously
believed, but of African descent’.74
Examining the burial of this ill-fated young
man renders this tale of disease and violence
even darker, while highlighting the difficulties of
reinterpreting past archaeological sequencing. In
the monthly report of 5 September 1940, archae-
ologist Conrad Bentzen noted that ‘It is probable
that the burial is not later than the Jamestown
period as two ditches . . . passes [sic] over the
burial’, implying that the interment predated ditch
construction. However, the plan view of the fea-
tures recorded on the 96:106 lot map, squares 43
and 44, contains the following statement: ‘It was
not possible to see the intrusion of F-75 [the burial]
here, due to nature of the fill’, implying that the
burial cut the ditches but that the shaft was not
noticed or recorded prior to reaching the level of
the bones themselves.75 Adding to the confusion is
the fact that the excavators were unable to distin-
guish between the edges of the ditch and the edges
of the burial — if indeed there were any. The burial
was laid in the same direction as the ditch, rather
than facing east. It seems likely that this now
nameless young man was buried in a very shallow
grave within the open Ditch 10, which was in use
throughout much of the 17th century as the south-
ern boundary for Back Street, the common road
through the settlement. Nor was HR10 the only
individual to be treated with minimal respect in
death: two more men of apparent African descent
35. were buried in a shallow grave in Ditch 76 some-
time in the last two decades of the 17th century.76
Contemplating the seemingly careless disposal
of these bodies in open ditches in the colony’s
only town serves as a harsh reminder that the
Jamestown experienced in the 17th century was
not the crucible for ideas of liberty and justice for
all, an ideal forged by Jamestown partisans in the
19th and 20th centuries. The way in which these
14 AUDREY HORNING
men, possibly African labourers, were interred
highlights the construction of racial difference
occurring throughout late 17th-century Virginia
— another unresolved legacy from Jamestown.77
While the ditch study and the osteoarchaeo-
logical analysis represent discrete components
of the Assessment that relied upon previously
excavated materials to formulate revised inter-
pretations of landscape and cultural relations, the
Assessment also identified areas with potential
for future excavation. Capitalizing upon the
recommendations of the Assessment was a re-
search project which examined Structure 24, the
home and workshop of an early artisan, in 1998
and 1999.78
CASE STUDY IN RE-EVALUATING
JAMESTOWN’S ARCHAEOLOGY:
STRUCTURE 24
36. As the first decade of English colonization in
Virginia drew to a close, occupation on Jamestown
Island began to shift outside the fortified settle-
ment. Lots were laid out in what became known
as ‘New Towne’ by Cambridge-educated surveyor
William Claiborne sometime after his arrival in the
colony in 1621. Yet little recognizable archaeologi-
cal evidence for occupation in New Towne during
the first quarter of the 17th century was unearthed
during the government-sponsored excavations of
the 1930s and 1950s. In the early 1990s, three pri-
mary loci of activity in the New Towne area during
the first half of the century were identified through
the spatial analysis of imported clay tobacco pipe
stems recovered from the townsite in the previous
excavations.79 However, these three zones pre-
dominantly represent manufacturing rather than
domestic activities. Although Jamestown has been
celebrated as ‘the place where many American
industries were born in the New World’, where
innovative craftspeople ‘never dreamed that the
seeds of . . . [their] incessant labours . . . would
someday flower into a great industrial and agricul-
tural nation’,80 the reality was far more pragmatic.
Attempts were made to establish manufacturing
in the Virginia capital and to diversify an economic
system which was becoming increasingly
dependent upon tobacco monoculture.
Throughout the Virginia Company period,
which lasted from the 1607 settlement to 1624,
when the Company’s charter was revoked by the
Crown, broadsides advertising for craftspersons
to come to Virginia were widely circulated. To
37. encourage further settlement and more impor-
tantly investments, the Virginia Company kept a
steady stream of favourable reports flowing from
Virginia back to London. The 1613 account of
the Reverend Alexander Whitaker, entitled ‘Good
News From Virginia’, was typical of Company
propaganda, as Whitaker extolled Virginia as ‘a
place beautified by God with all the ornaments of
nature and enriched with His earthly treasures’.81
Attempts by Jamestown’s early settlers to
create commodities for export through experi-
menting with various crops and industries are well
known. Some of the most intensive efforts con-
centrated upon glassmaking, silk production, the
vain search for precious metals, extraction of pitch
and tar, potash manufacturing, wine production,
and lumbering, as well as attempts to cultivate
West Indian crops such as sugar cane and indigo.
Archaeological expressions of many of these
industries have been uncovered at Jamestown,
including recent finds from the fort site indicating
that colonists not only produced metallic items for
trade with Native Americans, but that they antici-
pated substantial production for export.82 Perhaps
the most notable remains are those of the 1621
glasshouse on a point of land jutting from the
FIG. 6
Jamestown: Structure 24 in 1935 (Colonial National
Historical Park).
CONSTRUCTING JAMESTOWN 15
38. mainland at the narrow isthmus extending from
the island. The excavated glassmaking complex
included a working furnace, a fritting furnace
joined to an annealing furnace, as well as a pot
kiln, cullet pile, clay pit, and well.83 After the
company period, efforts to develop and diversify
manufactures were attempted by individual specu-
lators. Governor John Harvey, in office during
most of the 1630s, financed manufacturing on his
properties in the east and north-west of the town-
site — ventures which failed following his ejection
from office and return to England in 1639.84
Beyond Harvey’s own home at Structure 112 in
the north-west manufacturing zone, domestic sites
dating to the early expansion of Jamestown are
strikingly absent from the archaeological base
map, exacerbated by the archaeological recovery
bias in favour of brick. Re-evaluation of one enig-
matic dwelling in the east of New Towne, Structure
24, provided a window into the domestic life of
an early Jamestown artisan, and contributed to a
recent and very significant study by Karen Wehner
re-evaluating the role of craftspeople in the
17th-century capital.85
Structure 24 is a modest building with a
partial brick foundation situated close to the river
front, and was one of the first structures examined
in the 1930s. Unfortunately, the excavators pro-
duced no drawings, artefacts or written descrip-
tions of the building when they located it in
December 1934, employing Forman’s lamentable
shovel testing approach. Only a single photograph
and one enigmatic field note by an anonymous
author serve as documentation of its discovery
39. (Fig. 6). The note (written in August 1936) states
simply: ‘Only excavation here was by pot-holes.
A small foundation was exposed, but one photo-
graph is only record. Even the exact location
is now uncertain — since it has been backfilled.’
The notes were handwritten on the map form for
the 100x100ft Lot B98 (apparently), the general
locale of Structure 24. The cover sheet states ‘12/1/
34 — Started test holes. Several important fills.
Very few artifacts. Much brick dust and many bats
in area’.
Further illustrating the difficulties facing
anyone endeavouring to re-analyze Jamestown
archaeology, this cover sheet, filed with Lot B-98,
is titled Lot B-90. There simply is not enough data
on the form to ascertain to which lot it really
belongs. Research by John Cotter initially pointed
towards the structure as ‘an early 17th-century
feature of considerable significance’.86 Cotter
reviewed the evidence for the structure, and associ-
ated it with two features excavated under his
direction — Refuse Pit 5 and Well 20 — noting
similarities between a case bottle associated
with Structure 24 (COLO-J-12196) and fragments
found in Well 20 (COLO-J-3813, 36370, 12196,
and 11719).87
Well 20 was discovered during cross trenching
in 1955 (Fig. 7). Two and a quarter pages record
the evident horrors involved in excavating this par-
ticular feature.88 The well was apparently sectioned
during excavation in December 1955, and then left
open. Notes for 14 February 1956 record that ‘after
protracted heavy rains which flooded the well to
40. the five foot (1.5m) level, a whole Spanish earthen-
ware bottle with handles on opposite [sides] of
neck, floated to the surface and was fished out by
A.B. Moore’. The well remained in its flooded,
half-excavated state until July 1956. In clearing
the surface around the top of the feature, it was
recognized that ‘much artifact material [was]
missed when the mud [which] was cleared in the
first operations was recovered, including several
pieces of shoe leather’. Conditions were no better
on the second attempt, described as ‘excavation of
muck in Well 20’. Local Girl Scouts were pressed
into service to pick through the debris heaped up
on the side of the excavation area. A total of 659
artefacts are catalogued for the feature, of which
242 (36.72%) were ceramics.
Data from Refuse Pit 5 is similarly problem-
atic. The primary record for the feature (actually
two pits) consists of handwritten notes on a draft
feature form describing one pit as of ‘no significant
shape’, with no depth noted. At the bottom of the
sheet, someone [presumably John Cotter] penned
the following: ‘This refuse pit is a very important
early (1st quarter) 17th century deposit, as attested
by large quantities of typical artifacts, notably
white clay pipe fragments.’ On re-analysis, 62% of
276 imported pipe stem bores recovered from the
refuse pit measured 8/64ths in diameter, datable
to the period 1620–50, with 80, or 18%, measuring
9/64ths in diameter, datable to 1580–1620.
Despite the limitations of the data from previ-
ous excavations, research by Martha McCartney
supports Cotter’s interpretation. She traced the
property on which Structure 24, the well, and
41. the refuse pit are situated to the ownership of a
gunsmith named John Jackson, a resident of New
Towne in the 1620s, forming the basis for renewed
excavation to locate and interpret the building.89
While no patent for John Jackson’s property has
been unearthed, his holdings are referenced by
an adjoining property owned by the merchant
Richard Stephens. The ⅜ acre (0.15ha) waterfront
lot patented by Stephens in 1623 is described
as bounded on the east by Ralph Hamor’s 1½
acres (0.6ha), and bounded on the west by John
Jackson’s property.90 Research by McCartney
places Stephen’s lot directly atop and bisected by
16 AUDREY HORNING
Ditch 7, which thereby places Jackson’s property
in the vicinity of Structure 24, Well 20, and Refuse
Pit 5. Materials recovered from Refuse Pit 5 and
Well 20 support the nearby presence of a smith.
Items such as quantities of lead shot, lead, brass,
and iron scrap, gunflints and related debitage;
tools associated with smithing such as files,
hammer, chisel, and a clamp; and items possibly
brought for repair such as a sword and a variety of
agricultural and carpentry tools, all supported the
theory that Jackson the smith lived nearby.
When fully uncovered in 1999, Structure 24
measured 16x24ft (4.9x7.3m), its long axis ori-
ented east–west, with a two-room hall and parlour
floor plan (Fig. 8). Because excavators in the 1930s
had left the site exposed to the elements for an un-
42. known length of time, much of the soft brick had
decayed. The photograph, dated 15 January 1935,
shows a relatively intact foundation, while only
a crumbly brick ‘ghost’ survived to be recorded
in 1998 and 1999. Artefacts and soil chemistry
suggest that the north bay or hall accommodated
some of Jackson’s work, whilst most household
activities such as food preparation centred around
the hearth situated in the north-west corner of the
hall. Most striking is a clear difference between the
north and south ends of the house as marked by
soil pH, calcium, and magnesium, indicating that
the residents of the house used each bay in very
different ways. Utility earthenwares were con-
centrated in the north bay near the hearth, while
heightened soil potassium and phosphate levels on
the outside rear of the north bay may reflect the
dumping of wood ash, food waste and other hearth
refuse. Fragments of case bottle glass and decora-
tive ceramics clustered in the north-east corner of
the house near a series of small interior postholes,
possibly associated with shelving or a cupboard.91
Ninety-two per cent of all raw materials associated
with gun smithing — such as lead casting waste,
gunflints, and worked flint — were recovered
from around the hearth and storage area inside the
FIG. 7
Jamestown: Girl Scouts hunting for artefacts at Well 20 in 1956
(Colonial National Historical Park).
43. CONSTRUCTING JAMESTOWN 17
hall and in the spread of hearth ash and refuse
to the north of the hall, suggesting that Jackson
probably melted lead and cast shot in the home.
Not surprisingly, tobacco pipe fragments were also
concentrated near the hearth.92
John Jackson probably shared a pipe or two
in front of the fire with fellow gunsmith George
Clarke, who died at Jamestown in 1624 but is
recorded as a close associate. Individuals who
enjoyed the warmth of the Structure 24 hearth
in 1625 included John Jackson, his wife (who
appears, unnamed, in the 1624 census), their nine-
year old son John, a ten-year old orphan, Gercian
Buck, and a grown son or kinsman named
Ephraim Jackson. The 1625 census also indicates
that the Jacksons owned three cows, three goats
and four pigs that supplied the family and its many
visitors with dairy products and meat for the
winter months.93 The Jacksons also shared the hos-
pitality of their hearth with relatives who lived at
the nearby settlement at Martin’s Hundred. Their
generosity is evident in a letter written by a young
Martin’s Hundred servant, Richard Frethorne, to
his parents in England. Frethorne spoke of the
Jackson family in Jamestown as surrogate parents,
noting that they had constructed a ‘cabin’ for him
and his fellow servants to stay in during their visits
to prevent them from having to huddle overnight
in their vessel.94 Frethorne was at Martin’s
Hundred at the same time as Thomas Ward, the
documented potter who may be identified as the
‘Martin’s Hundred Potter’, whose wares were
44. uncovered during Ivor Noël Hume’s excavations
of Wolstenholme Towne in the 1970s. Beverly
Straube identified the same ware type in the assem-
blage from Well 20.95 Ward served as an apprentice
under another John Jackson, this one a brick-
maker, possibly related to Jamestown’s John
Jackson.96
Frethorne’s letter also serves as a poignant
reminder that while the colony had stabilized
since the initial rocky years of colonization, life in
Virginia, particularly for indentured servants,
was fraught with hardship. The young servant
bemoaned his lot:
I have nothing at all, no, not a shirt to my
backe, but two Ragges nor no clothes, but
one poor suite, nor but one pair of shoes, but
one pair of stockings, but one Capp . . . I am
not halfe a quarter so strong as I was in
England, and all is for want of victualls, for
FIG. 8
Jamestown: 1998 and 1999 excavations at Structure 24.
18 AUDREY HORNING
I do protest unto you, that I have eaten more
in one day at home than I have allowed me
here for a Weeke . . .97
In contrast to the unenviable lot of Frethorne,
John Jackson managed to establish himself
45. quickly in Virginia society. He served as a
churchwarden, an administrator for the estates of
deceased neighbours, and an assembly man in 1632
and 1633. John Jackson’s ability to rise in society
was due to, rather than in spite of, his occupation
as a gunsmith. The lure of profit from tobacco
led some craftsmen to abandon their trades and,
despite legislation to the contrary, to take up
small holdings outside the fledgling town.98 Those
artisans like Jackson who opted to stay in
Jamestown and ply their trades clearly profited.
Ceramics found at Structure 24 in 1998 and
1999 combined with those recovered from Well
20 and Refuse Pit 5 include Dutch earthenware,
Spanish costrels and olive jars, Italian and
Portuguese tablewares, Chinese porcelain, and
German Werra wares, in addition to English earth-
enwares and the coarse earthenwares produced at
Jamestown and Martin’s Hundred. While the pres-
ence of these materials is not unusual among finds
elsewhere in New Towne and the fort site, they
contrast strongly with wares found on contem-
porary rural Chesapeake sites.99 For example,
the examination of a rural homelot at Martin’s
Hundred, dating to the second quarter of the 17th
century, uncovered a ceramic assemblage domi-
nated by coarse earthenwares (61% of sherds).100
This stands in marked contrast to Structure 24’s
ceramic assemblage, containing only 26% coarse
earthenwares. The remaining ceramics at the
Martin’s Hundred site, 22% tin-glazed wares and
17% stonewares, were represented by utilitarian
storage forms, rather than the more elite serving or
dining vessels found at Jamestown’s Structure 24.
46. Low percentages of locally made coarse
earthenwares at the same Martin’s Hundred site
(when compared with other more artefact-rich
sites at Martin’s Hundred) is interpreted as
evidence that the site’s occupants ‘had to “make
do” with the ceramic vessels brought with them
from England’, unable to afford locally made
products.101 No window glass or window lead was
found at the Martin’s Hundred site, suggesting
that ‘oiled paper, cloth or shutters probably
covered the window openings . . . making a typical
Virginia winter day seem even gloomier’.102 By
contrast, the excavation at Structure 24 unearthed
not only window glass, but brass curtain rings
and interior plaster. Not only would sunlight have
flooded into Structure 24 through the glass-paned
window (or windows), the light reflected against
strikingly white plastered walls brightened the
interior of the home just as the drab, dark clay-
daubed walls of the Martin’s Hundred home
absorbed and dulled any available light. While
Martin’s Hundred, like Jamestown, was conve-
niently located on the James River, the inhabitants
of the humble farmstead had no economic access
to the types of commodities evidently enjoyed by
the Jacksons of Jamestown.
Beyond the evidence of ceramics and architec-
tural materials, other noteworthy items recovered
from Structure 24, Well 20, and Refuse Pit 5 are
similarly indicative of the reasonably comfortable
standard of living enjoyed by the Jacksons.
Evidence for some leisure time in the house comes
in the form of an ivory cribbage board, discarded
47. in Refuse Pit 5, while a brass key found in the same
feature probably relates to a lockable article of
furniture such as a chest. Two wrought iron hinges
probably deriving from furniture, one a strap
and the other a reverse butterfly form, emerged
from disturbed soils atop Structure 24. A copper
furniture tack was also found in the refuse pit,
and similar copper alloy tacks were recovered
from ploughed soils directly atop Structure 24.
However much Jamestown may have faltered
as a town, it was intended to serve as the colony’s
principal entrepôt. The presence of Dutch,
Rhenish, Spanish, Italian and English ceramic
wares at Jamestown highlights the position of
the small port in the larger mercantile world of
the north Atlantic. Several of the Jacksons’
neighbours along the waterfront were heavily
involved in commercial activities linked to this
Atlantic shipping trade. George Menefie, for
example, owned nearly one acre on the waterfront
further to the east of the Jacksons and served as
the official merchant and factor for the corpora-
tion of James Cittie, facilitated by his ownership of
two ships. Richard Stephens, the Jacksons’ closest
neighbour, transformed himself from a painter-
stainer and investor in the Virginia Company, to
a Jamestown merchant and, in 1623, a Virginia
burgess. Closer to the fort was the storehouse of
Abraham Peirsey, the colony’s cape merchant who
not only transported goods across the Atlantic,
but sponsored voyages to the Newfoundland
fishing grounds. Like many of his contemporaries,
Peirsey retained business interests in England.
Neighbour John Harvey was captain of the ship
Southampton, which regularly plied the waters of
48. the north Atlantic. Before first arriving in Virginia
in 1623, Harvey spent three years in Guiana. He
soon left Virginia on an expedition to Cadiz, but
ultimately returned to Jamestown as Governor in
1630. Harvey’s leadership and his aforementioned
entrepreneurship were clearly informed by his
CONSTRUCTING JAMESTOWN 19
experiences not only in England and Virginia, but
on his many trading expeditions throughout the
Atlantic and the Caribbean.103
Occupants of the Jackson household gazed up
and down the shoreline at a host of ships, wooden
storehouses, and numerous docks. They witnessed
sailing ships, including the Southampton, unload-
ing a variety of commodities such as imported
ceramics, bolts of cloth, pewter, glassware, shoes
and other leather goods, and exotic herbs and
spices. Family members may also have witnessed
the unloading of a new commodity — human
beings — when the previously noted Dutch frigate
sailed into the Chesapeake Bay from the West
Indies in 1619, bearing a cargo that included
at least twenty Africans. Only four days later, a
second ship, the Treasurer, landed in Hampton
Roads. One of her cargo, a woman named Angelo,
soon found herself living at Jamestown. By 1625,
she was a servant in the household of Lieutenant
William Peirce, based only a short distance away
from the Jacksons.104 Exactly what Angelo thought
of English Jamestown, and what her neighbours
thought of her, is impossible to know.
49. Sites like Structure 24 illustrate both the diffi-
culty and the potential in re-examining previously
excavated and interpreted sites at Jamestown.
The story of the Jackson family could be read in
a traditional celebratory fashion, noting that John
Jackson was in effect a ‘self-made man’ pursuing
some 17th-century version of the American dream.
But far more interesting, complicated, and unre-
solved stories also emerge: tales of cultural uncer-
tainties and of death, violence, and conflict in a
harsh land, as well as more intimate tales of family,
work, and community life. The Jackson family
tales revolved around a modest domestic complex
perched on the edge of the James River named
after their monarch, the name of the river anchor-
ing the family to their core identity as English. As
attested by material culture and by the documen-
tary record, the Jacksons were not living an iso-
lated, materially impoverished ‘pioneer’ lifestyle.
Rather, they endeavoured to surround themselves
with familiar as well as fashionable commodities,
and organized their household around accepted
patterns of work and leisure. Connections to
England and the expanding world of the Atlantic
were maintained through the traffic coming into
the port, and the travels of neighbours such as
Harvey. Connections to more local kin, such as the
Jacksons of Martin’s Hundred, were facilitated
by water transport on the James River. Their
relations with ‘strangers’ — including native
Americans, Africans, and non-English Europeans
— are harder to reconstruct, but were a constant
feature of life in early Jamestown. In short, sites
like Structure 24 reveal simple human stories that
50. nonetheless reflect the broader socio-politics of an
emerging colonial Atlantic world.
JAMESTOWN IN THE 21st CENTURY
‘Archaeology has tremendous potential for a
scientific study of nationalism as a cultural and
evolving process’, argued Robert Schuyler during
the frenzy of the American Bicentennial cele-
brations of 1976, while noting that ‘most ethnic
and economic minorities have been purposefully
excluded from our national history’.105 Although
Jamestown’s archaeological heritage continues to
draw visitors from around the nation and indeed
the world, the ability for Jamestown to continue to
serve the American national ethos through simple
celebration of the site’s early remains is question-
able. Jamestown, as it has been interpreted, argu-
ably has little relevance to a nation striving to
come to terms with its multicultural heritage. In
Virginia, the legacy of 1607 remains unresolved,
with Virginia’s eight recognized state native
groups still denied Federal recognition.106 An offi-
cial state advisory body, the Virginia Council on
Indians, has stepped back from direct involvement
in the Jamestown 2007 commemoration project,
leaving the decision for involvement up to the indi-
vidual tribes and their leaders. A separate commit-
tee, the Jamestown 2007 Virginia Indian Advisory
Committee, incorporates tribal members engaged
in planning special events during 2007, including a
three day symposium entitled ‘Virginia Indians:
Four Hundred Years of Survival’.107
From an archaeological perspective, one of
the most interesting and innovative studies of
51. relevance to Jamestown in the 21st century is
the Werowocomoco Research Project. Led by a
research group incorporating archaeologists, Vir-
ginia Indians, and private landowners, the project
is concentrating upon unearthing and interpreting
the traces of the seat of Wahunsonacock, the para-
mount chief of the Powhatan chiefdom (known
as Tsenacommacah) at the time of the founding
of Jamestown, until his 1609 move to Orapaks
(probably near today’s Bottom’s Bridge in New
Kent County, near Richmond). Situated adjacent
to Purtan Bay on the York River, the site was
first investigated in 1977 but not confidently iden-
tified as Werowocomoco until 2002.108 Materials
collected from the surface of the property, in
addition to excavated remains, clearly highlight
a dense, intensive occupation of the site, with a
series of features suggesting intentional manipula-
tion of the landscape to serve political and
ideological purposes.109 Continuing research at
20 AUDREY HORNING
Werowocomoco has the potential to alter signifi-
cantly and to expand our archaeological under-
standing of Powhatan complexity. Investigations
at Werowocomoco also have the potential to
decentre early Jamestown in understanding rela-
tions between natives and newcomers — relations
in which the world of the Powhatan, rather than
the world of John Smith, was predominant.
CONCLUSION
52. At the centennial celebration of the creation of
the Virginia Historical Society in 1931, historian
Charles M. Andrews stressed in his address to the
Society the need to beware of ‘the trappings of
unsupported legend and tradition and to come out
into the full light that truth and understanding
shed upon the story of our colonial past’.110 Few
other historic sites have become so symbolically
charged as has Jamestown, owing as much to
intentional academic emphasis upon the American
character of the site as to the public need to
commemorate and worship cultural monuments.
In 1958, John Cotter optimistically described
archaeological data as ‘of itself, incontrovertible
. . . [and] free from adulteration or distortion in its
creation and deposition’, yet inevitably subject to
misinterpretation.111 The real power of archaeo-
logy is not the incontrovertibility of the data set,
but that archaeological evidence retains ‘a power-
ful capacity to constrain our interpretive thinking
about the past’.112 Jamestown will always have a
mythic dimension and patriotic appeal; this fact
should not, cannot, and does not cripple our abil-
ity to dissect and reconsider the settlement’s his-
tory as revealed through archaeological and other
sources. Far clearer in Jamestown’s archaeological
remains is the imprint of 17th-century England
and 17th-century Tsenacommacah than are the
foreshadowings of 1776.
As the 2007 anniversary rapidly approaches,
the broader context of American society and poli-
tics again is impacting upon public presentation.
The site itself has been officially renamed ‘Historic
Jamestowne–America’s Birthplace’, an association
reflected in the title of the one of the latest histories
53. of Jamestown, A Land as God Made it: Jamestown
and the Birth of America, by British historian
James Horn.113 While Horn could never be accused
of ignoring the broader European context for
understanding the Jamestown experience, his
publishers (Basic Books) are clearly focused on
a market.114 Similarly, the first sentence in the
latest publication describing the findings of the
Jamestown Rediscovery project declares that
‘the American Dream was born on the banks of the
James River’.115 Jamestown continues to serve the
aims of politicians, as exemplified by a letter writ-
ten by American President George W. Bush in sup-
port of ‘those preparing to celebrate [my emphasis]
the 400th anniversary of the Jamestown settle-
ment’,116 despite calls for reflection by advisory
groups including Virginia Indians and African
Americans.
Jamestown is not significant because it was
settled in 1607 and therefore can lay claim to being
the ‘cradle of the Republic’, or the place where
America began. Such a notion not only denies
10,500 years of native life, as well as the 16th-
century Spanish colonial presence in North
America and earlier English colonial and commer-
cial endeavours, but more importantly would have
seemed ludicrous to Virginia’s settlers and leaders.
It is from their perspective that we must try to
understand the meaning behind Jamestown’s
archaeological remains. Jamestown’s archaeology
can inform us more about the culture of 17th-
century England than it can about the origins of
an elusive American identity, yet at the same time
it is through awareness of the English nature of
54. 17th-century Jamestown that the later events of the
18th century may best be understood. Jamestown’s
archaeology is not irrelevant because it has focused
upon a small and elite cadre of prominent early
settlers deemed prototypical and protogenerative
of a specific national identity. Instead, it is critical
that the pieces of archaeological Jamestown be
reassembled in relation to the context within which
they were originally created, and not only in rela-
tion to the context within which they were first
excavated. Resituating Jamestown in a critical
international framework can contribute to a more
sophisticated public dialogue that highlights
the ambiguities and violence of colonial entangle-
ments, acknowledges the disparate perspectives,
contributions, and experiences of Virginia’s First
People, and challenges nationalist histories.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to the editors for their excellent
editorial work, and to an anonymous reviewer for
very helpful comments. Much of this research was
carried out during the Jamestown Archaeological
Assessment, funded by the National Park Service
and carried out through a co-operative agreement
with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. I am
grateful to all those who were also involved in the
Assessment, directed by Marley Brown III and
Cary Carson of Colonial Williamsburg. Individual
thanks to Nick Brannon, Andrew Edwards,
CONSTRUCTING JAMESTOWN 21
55. Martin Gallivan, Martha McCartney, David Orr,
Karen Rehm, David Riggs, Jane Sundberg, Diane
Stallings, and Karen Bellinger Wehner. I have long
benefited from discourse with the staff of the
National Park Service and APVA–Preservation
Virginia, as well as students and colleagues at the
College of William and Mary and the University of
Leicester. I wish to thank all those who have and
who will labour in the trenches at Jamestown. My
gratitude is also extended to three gentlemen who
did the best they could to record, preserve, and
interpret Jamestown’s archaeology in the previous
federally-sponsored excavations: John Cotter,
J.C. ‘Pinky’ Harrington, and CCC foreman Empy
Jones.
NOTES
1 Cabell 1947, 76.
2 Harrington 1984, 29.
3 Kelso & Straube 2004; for a zoological perspective
on the early hardships in the fort, see Bowen &
Andrews 1999.
4 Brown 1993; Brown & Orr 1999; Horning 2000b;
2002a.
5 Horning 2002a.
6 One example relevant to this study is the case of
Structure 17, which was interpreted by Gregory
(1935) as the First Statehouse, dating to the 1640s.
This interpretation was enthusiastically embraced by
Forman, and proclaimed publicly. Faced with the
overwhelming evidence of a late 17th-century artefact
assemblage, John Cotter was more circumspect in
56. accepting this identification. Regardless, the structure
continued to be interpreted on the site as the First
Statehouse. Likewise, Structures 6 and 7, clearly of
18th-century date, were interpreted as dating to
the 17th century. It should be noted, however, that
the inaccurate ascription of early dates to many of
Jamestown’s structures was due in part to the infancy
of the study of 17th-century material culture, a subject
which was pioneered at Jamestown.
7 Much of the knowledge about the Company
period at Jamestown has come from early narratives
of Englishmen such as John Smith, Ralph Hamor,
John Rolfe and William Strachey, as well as the
records of the Virginia Company itself. See Barbour
1986; Force 1963; Hamor 1957; Rolfe 1957; Percy
1922; Wright & Freund 1953; Kingsbury 1906–35.
8 Geophysical prospecting pinpointed a range of
previously unidentified features, including a cluster of
18th-century brick kilns. See Bevan et al. 2000.
9 Hening 1809–23, 2, 172–6.
10 Horning & Edwards 2000.
11 Carson et al. 2004; Horning 1995; 1999; 2000;
2002a; 2006.
12 Earle 1975, 1977; Forman 1938, 50; see also
Forman 1948; 1957; Bridenbaugh 1980, 107. Scholars
such as Carville Earle, who stated that ‘Chesapeake
settlements had no system, or so it seemed to the
seventeenth-century mind’, argued for an almost
complete lack of towns in the early Chesapeake: Earle
1975, 5.
57. 13 Bragdon et al. 1993, 224.
14 Horning 1995; 2000; 2006.
15 Anon 1837.
16 King 2001, 1.
17 Kibler 1943; McCartney 2000a.
18 Ambler 1826, Box 2, 1, 1–19.
19 McCartney 2000a; Raschal 1958, 259–71; Strother
1857.
20 McCartney 2000a; Raschal 1958, 259–71.
21 For a comprehensive discussion of the role of
Jamestown Island as a military fort, naval hub,
and communications centre during the Civil War, see
Riggs 1997.
22 Elizabeth Henry Lyons, cited in Lindgren 1993, 97.
23 Galt 1901; Lindgren 1993, 113.
24 Lindgren 1993, 113.
25 Caywood 1954; Kelso & Straube 2004; Shiner
1955; Yonge 1930. Structure 144 was re-excavated
by the Jamestown Rediscovery team prior to the con-
struction of the ‘Archaearium’, which houses exhibits
featuring the Virginia Company period. The exhibit
building incorporates glass panels to allow visitors to
see the foundations of Structure 144. See Carson et al.
2002 for a detailed re-evaluation of the history of this
structure.
26 Lindgren 1993, 9.
27 Lindgren 1993, 242–3.
28 Test excavations in 1993, 1994 and 1995 revealed
that the above-ground interpretive brickwork did not
always reflect accurately either the location or the
58. appearance of the excavated foundation below.
Re-examination of Structures 44, 53, and 138 in 1994
revealed that some interpretive foundations were
inaccurate by as much as three metres. The principal
records for these structures, excavated in the pre-
Harrington period, are the personal notes of CCC
foreman Empy Jones. See Horning & Edwards
2000. More recently, Colonial National Historic
Park archaeologist Andrew Veech (2005) also re-
investigated Structure 138.
29 Kingsbury 1906–35, 3, 243; McCartney 2000a, 49;
2000d.
30 The Ambler lands were then owned by William
Allen: McCartney 2000b.
31 Galt quoted in Lindgren 1993, 112.
32 Lightfoot 1908, 33; Lindgren 1993, 112.
33 Bedell 1893.
34 Bedell 1893.
35 Forman 1935; Parris 1935.
36 Harrington 1984.
22 AUDREY HORNING
37 Gregory 1935, 193.
38 Horning 1995; Horning & Edwards 2000.
Recently, William Kelso (2006) has revived the inter-
pretation of Structure 17 as the ‘First Statehouse’.
However, this interpretation is contrary to the docu-
mented property history (see Carson et al. 2002 for
specific discussion of Structure 17 and the statehouse
59. theory, and Carson et al. 2004 for a summary of the
documented property history for the row).
39 For further discussion of this building, see
Horning et al. 1993; Horning 1995; Horning &
Edwards 2000. For the latest incorporation of
archaeological, architectural, and historical material,
see Carson et al. 2004.
40 Horning 2000; 2006.
41 Harrington 1984, 34.
42 Zaharov 1935, 3.
43 Davidson & Pferschler 2003.
44 Horning 1995; 2000.
45 Kelso & Straube 2004.
46 Bridenbaugh 1980, 135.
47 Bruce 1895, 2, 148.
48 Carson et al. 1981 — but note the increasing
evidence for brick construction outside Jamestown in
the 17th century, e.g. Pickett 1996; Brown 1997; King
& Chaney 1999.
49 Harrington 1938; 1941; 1942; 1952a.
50 Cotter 1957b, 44.
51 Forman 1938.
52 Hatch 1949.
53 Harrington 1946, 7.
54 Hatch 1941; 1949; 1956; 1957.
55 Russell 1967; Harrington 1955.
56 Horning & Edwards 2000.
57 Horning & Edwards 2000.
58 Cotter & Jelks 1957, 387.
59 Structures not physically examined by Cotter are
only schematically represented on the base map.
60. For example, Structures 44/53/138 appear as a unified
entity, but excavations in 1995 revealed them to be
three separate structures with different chronologies.
See Horning & Edwards 2000.
60 Cotter 1958, 1–2.
61 Harrington 1984, 29.
62 Lewis 1975. Polk’s 1984 MA thesis incorporates
valuable oral historical commentary from Jamestown
archaeologists, including Cotter, Harrington and
Shiner, both in the text and on an accompanying
videotape. Polk also contemplates trade connections
between Jamestown and the Netherlands.
63 Johnson et al. 2001.
64 Blanton et al. 2000.
65 Stahle et al. 1998; Blanton 2000.
66 Johnson et al. 2001; Kelso et al. 1995.
67 Kupperman 2000, 175.
68 Gallivan 2003; Hatfield 2004; Williamson 2003.
69 Horning 1995; 2006.
70 Carson et al. 2004; McCartney 2000b.
71 McCartney 1999b.
72 It should be noted that none of the Virginia tribal
groups whose ancestors were intimately familiar with
Jamestown Island, before and after English arrival,
enjoy Federal recognition. Because they are not feder-
ally recognized, technically they cannot benefit from
NAGPRA legislation.
73 Neumann 1958.
74 Owsley 1999, 18.
75 September 1940 Monthly Report, NPS files,
61. Colonial National Historical Park; see also Bentzen
1941.
76 Carson et al. 2004; Owlsey 1999.
77 For an insightful discussion of the construction of
racial difference in the Chesapeake, see Epperson
2001.
78 Horning & Wehner 2001; Wehner 2006.
79 Brown 1994; Horning 1995; Horning & Edwards
2000.
80 Hudson 1957b, iii-iv; see also Hudson 1956a;
1956b; 1957a.
81 Bruce 1894–95a; 1894–95b; Wright 1965, 219.
82 Hudgins 2004; Mallios 1998.
83 Harrington 1952b.
84 For a more extensive discussion of the re-
evaluation of archaeology associated with these early
manufacturing sites, see Horning 1995; Horning &
Edwards 2000; and especially Mrozowski 1999.
85 Wehner 2006.
86 Cotter 1958.
87 It should be noted that the case bottle that Cotter
attributes to Structure 24 is listed in the catalogue
as having come from 50ft (15m) south of Well 20. If
that information is accurate, it would place the bottle
c. 20ft (6m) south of Structure 24 — quite possibly
related, but definitely not from the structure as
recorded on the base map. Exactly how the pro-
62. venance relative to Well 20 was derived is unclear, as
Well 20 was not discovered until 1955; the case bottle
had been found in December 1934.
88 Recorded on a form for Feature 40 of Project 102,
and labelled as a ‘pit’ rather than a well.
89 McCartney 2000a; 2000b; 2000c.
90 Patent Book 1, 1; Nugent 1992, 2; McCartney
1996; 2000b.
91 Horning & Wehner 2001.
92 Horning & Wehner 2001.
93 Hecht 1973; McCartney 1999a; Meyer & Dorman
1987.
94 Kingsbury 1906–35, 3, 58–62.
95 Carson et al. 2004; McCartney 1995; Noël Hume
1982; Straube 1995.
96 McCartney 1995.
97 Kingsbury 1906–35, 3, 58–62.
98 Virginia Company instructions of 1621 specifically
state that the colonial officials were not to permit
CONSTRUCTING JAMESTOWN 23
artisans ‘to forsake ther former occupacons for plant-
ing Tobacco or such useless comodyties’ (Kingsbury
1906–35, 1, 424).
99 Horning & Edwards 2000; Horning 1995; Kelso &
Straube 2004; Kelso et al. 1999.
63. 100 Edwards 2004
101 Edwards 2004, 54.
102 Edwards 2004, 64.
103 Kingsbury 1906–35, 3, 2; McCartney 2000c;
McIlwaine 1924; Parks 1982.
104 Hotten 1980; McCartney 2000a; 2000c; Meyer &
Dorman 1987.
105 Schuyler 1976, 35.
106 Recognized tribal groups include the Chickaho-
miny, Eastern Chickahominy, Nansemond, Rappa-
hannock, Pamunkey, Mattaponi, Upper Mattaponi
and Monacan.
107 VCI minutes specify that ‘This committee is
affiliated with Jamestown 2007, not with the Virginia
Council on Indians, but their activities are shared
with the VCI because of interest on the part of the
Virginia Indian communities in what is happening
regarding Jamestown 2007’. Minutes, VCI meetings
18 October 2005.
108 Turner 2003. For one of many pieces referencing
the long debate over the location of the site, see Bagby
1941.
109 Martin Gallivan, pers. comm.
110 Andrews 1931, quoted in Morton 1960, vii.
111 Cotter 1958, 161.
112 Wylie 1993.
113 Horn 2005.
114 Basic Books are not the only publishers who opt
for patriotic titles. See Billings 1990; McCartney 2001.
115 Kelso 2006, 1.
116 George W. Bush, 28 February 2005.
117 Tyler 1906.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
PUBLISHED SOURCES
64. Anon. [The Antiquary] 1837, ‘Island of Jamestown’,
Southern Literary Messenger 3, 302–4.
Bagby, A. Jr 1941, ‘Werowocomico’, William & Mary
Coll. Quart. Hist. Mag. ser. 2, 21:3, 248–9.
Barbour, P. (ed.) 1986, Travels and Works of Captain
John Smith, 3 vols, Chapel Hill (NC): University
of North Carolina Press.
Bedell, G. 1893, ‘Letter to the editor’, Virginia
Gazette, 11 August.
Bevan, B., Blanton, D. & Horning, A. 2000, Evalua-
tion and Field Verification of Geophysical Data,
Jamestown Archaeol. Assessment 1992–96,
Tech. Rep. Ser. 6.
Billings, W.M. 1990, Jamestown and the Founding of a
Nation, Gettysburg (PA): Thomas.
Blanton, D.B. 2000, ‘Drought as a factor in the
Jamestown Colony, 1607–1612’, Hist. Archaeol.
34:4, 74–81.
Blanton, D.B., Kandle, P. & Downing, C.M. 2000,
Archaeological Survey of Jamestown Island,
Jamestown Archaeol. Assessment 1992–96,
Tech. Rep. Ser. 7.
Bragdon, K., Chappell, E. & Graham, W. 1993,
‘A scant urbanity: Jamestown in the seventeenth
century’, in Reinhart & Pogue 1993, 223–50.
Bridenbaugh, C. 1980, Jamestown, 1544–1699, New
65. York: Oxford University Press.
Brown, M.R. 1993, ‘National Park Service Archaeo-
logical Assessment of Jamestown, Virginia:
Research Plan, 1992–1994’, Jamestown
Archaeol. Assessment Newsletter 1:1, 1–5.
Brown, M.R. 1994, ‘An update on the status of the
Jamestown assessment’, Jamestown Archaeol.
Assessment Newsletter 1:2/3, no. 1, 22–4.
Brown, M.R. & Orr, D.G. 1999, ‘The Jamestown
archaeological assessment’, Cultural Resource
Management 22:1, 4–6.
Bruce, P.A. (ed.) 1894–95a, ‘Instructions to Sir
George Yeardley’, Virginia Mag. Hist. & Biog. 2,
160.
Bruce, P.A. (ed.) 1894–95b, ‘Virginia under Governor
Harvey’, Virginia Mag. Hist. & Biog. 2, 21–34.
Bruce, P.A. 1895, Economic History of Virginia in the
Seventeenth Century, 2 vols, New York:
Macmillan.
Bush, G.W. 2005, (<http://www.jamestown2007.org/
press-mediakitimages.cfm> accessed 20 June
2006).
Cabell, J.B. 1947, Let Me Lie: Being in the Main
an Ethnological Account of the Remarkable
Commonwealth of Virginia and the Making of its
History, New York: Farrar, Strauss.
Carson, C., Barka, N.F., Kelso, W.M., Stone, G.W.
66. & Upton, D. 1981, ‘Impermanent architecture in
the southern American colonies’, Winterthur
Portfolio 16, 135–96.
Carson, C., Horning, A.J., Straube, B. & Fuchs, R.
2004, Evaluation of Previous Archaeology,
Jamestown Archaeol. Assessment 1992–96,
Tech. Rep. Ser. 9.
Cotter, J.L. 1957a, ‘Excavations at Jamestown,
Virginia, site of the first permanent English
settlement in America’, Antiquity 141 (March),
19–24.
Cotter, J.L. 1957b, ‘Jamestown: treasure in the earth’,
Mag. Antiques 46:1, 44–6.
Cotter, J.L. 1958, Archaeological Excavations
at Jamestown, Virginia, Washington, (DC):
National Park Service Archaeol. Res. Ser. 4.
Cotter, J.L. & Jelks, E.B. 1957, ‘Historic Site Archae-
ology at Jamestown’, Amer. Antiq. 22, no. 4,
387–9.
24 AUDREY HORNING
Davidson, L.P. & Pferschler, M.J. 2003, ‘The historic
American buildings survey during the New Deal
era’, J. Heritage Stewardship 1:1, 49–73.
Earle, C.V. 1975, The Evolution of a Tidewater
Settlement System, Univ. Chicago Res. Pap. 170.
67. Earle, C.V. 1977, ‘The first English towns of North
America’, Geog. Rev. 67, 34–50.
Egan, G. & Michael, R.L. (eds) 1999, Old and New
Worlds, Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Epperson, T. 2001, ‘“A separate house for the
Christian slaves, one for the negro slaves”: the
archaeology of race and identity in late
seventeenth-century Virginia’, in Orser 2001,
54–70.
Force, P. (ed.) 1963, Tracts and Other Papers Relating
to the Origin, Settlement, and Progress of the
Colonies in North America, 4 vols, Gloucester
(Mass): Peter Smith.
Forman, H.C. 1938, Jamestown and St Mary’s:
Buried Cities of Romance, Baltimore (MD):
Johns Hopkins Press.
Forman, H.C. 1948, Architecture of the Old South,
New Haven (Conn.): Harvard University Press.
Forman, H.C. 1957, Virginia Architecture in the
Seventeenth Century, Richmond (VA): Virginia
350th Anniversary Celebration Corporation.
Gallivan, M.D. 2003, James River Chiefdoms: the Rise
of Social Inequality in the Chesapeake, Lincoln
(VA): University of Nebraska Press.
Green, A. & Leech, R. (eds) 2006, Cities in the World,
1500–2000, Post-Medieval Archaeol. Monogr. 3.
Gregory, G.C. 1935, ‘Jamestown’s first brick State
68. House’, Virginia Mag. Hist. & Biog. 43:3, 193–9.
Griffin, J.B. (ed.) 1952, Archaeology of the Eastern
United States, Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Hamor, R. 1957 [1615], A True Discourse of the
Present Estate of Virginia and the Successe
of the Affaires There till the 18th of June 1614,
Richmond (VA): Virginia State Library.
Harrington, J.C. 1946, ‘Interpreting Jamestown to the
visitor’, Museum News 24:11, 7–8.
Harrington, J.C. 1952a, ‘Historic site archaeology in
the United States’, in Griffin 1952, 295–315.
Harrington, J.C. 1952b, Glassmaking at Jamestown,
Richmond (VA): Dietz Press.
Harrington, J.C. 1956, ‘Archaeology as an auxiliary
science to American history’, Amer. Anthropol.
57:6, 1121–30.
Harrington, J.C. 1984, ‘Jamestown archaeology in
retrospect’, in Orr & Crozier 1984, 29–53.
Hatch, C.E. 1941, ‘Glassmaking in Virginia’, William
and Mary Quart. Hist. Mag. ser. 2, 21:2, 119–38;
21:3, 227–38.
Hatch, C.E. 1949, ‘The great road: earliest highway
used and developed by the English at
Jamestown’, Virginia Mag. Hist. & Biog. ser. 2,
57:1, 14–21.
69. Hatch, C.E. 1956, ‘America’s oldest legislative
assembly and its Jamestown statehouses’,
National Park Service Interpretive Ser. Hist. 2.
Hatch, C.E. 1957, ‘Mulberry trees and silkworms’,
Virginia Mag. Hist. & Biog. 65:1, 3–61.
Hatfield, A.L. 2004, Atlantic Virginia: Intercolonial
Relations in the Seventeenth Century, Philadel-
phia (PA): University of Pennsylvania Press.
Heath, B. (ed.) 2002, The Jamestown Archaeological
Assessment, Washington (DC): National Park
Service.
Hecht, I.W.D. 1973, ‘The Virginia muster of 1624/25
as a source for demographic history’, William &
Mary Quarterly, ser. 3, 30, 65–92.
Hening, W.W. (ed.) 1809–23, The Statutes at Large:
Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia,
Richmond (VA): Samuel Pleasants.
Horn, J. 2005, A Land As God Made It: Jamestown
and the Birth of America, New York: Basic
Books.
Horning, A.J. 1999, ‘Finding the town in Jamestown:
archaeology of the 17th-century capital’,
Cultural Resource Management 22:1, 7–10.
Horning, A.J. 2000, ‘Urbanism in the colonial
South: the development of seventeenth-century
Jamestown’, in Young 2000, 52–68.
Horning, A.J. 2002a, ‘Archaeology at Jamestown’, in
70. Heath 2002, 17–27.
Horning, A.J. 2002b, ‘New Towne: from fort to
capital’, in Heath 2002, 63–112.
Horning, A.J. 2006, ‘English towns on the periphery:
17th-century development in Ulster and the
Chesapeake’, in Green & Leech 2006, 61–82.
Horning, A.J. & Edwards, A.C. 2000, Archaeology in
New Towne, 1993–1995, Jamestown Archaeol.
Assessment 1992–96, Tech. Rep. Ser. 3.
Horning, A.J., Edwards, A.C. & Brown, G.J. 1993,
‘1993 Archaeological Investigations in New
Towne’, Jamestown Archaeol. Assessment
Newsletter 1:1, 8–12.
Hotten, J.C. 1980, Original Lists of Person of Quality,
1600–1700, Baltimore (MD): Genealogical
Publishing.
Hudgins, C. 2004, ‘Old World industries and New
World hope: the industrial role of scrap copper
at Jamestown’, J. Jamestown Rediscovery Center
2, 1–6.
Hudson, J.P. 1956a, ‘The story of iron at Jamestown,
Virginia — where iron objects were wrought by
Englishmen almost 350 years ago’, The Iron
Worker 20:3, 2–14.
Hudson, J.P. 1957a, ‘Jamestown artisans and
craftsmen’, Mag. Antiques 46:1, 47–50.
Hudson, J.P. 1957b, A Pictorial Booklet on Early
