News

Staff Archaeologist Natalie Reid explains the excavations of the 1608 ditch and 1610s well during an archaeology tour.

April 2023

Archaeology is advancing our understanding of a ditch thought to date to 1608 as excavations on a segment of it near completion. A few feet to […]

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The King's Colours, the Tercentennial Monument, and the newly-rebuilt palisade wall.

March 2023

Shovels, pickaxes, and trowels are hard at work all over Jamestown. Work continues on an early 17th-century well found just outside James Fort’s north bulwark. Across […]

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Staff Archaeologist Caitlin Delmas and Archaeological Field Technician Hannah use a transit to document the excavations outside the Jamestown Rediscovery Center.

February 2023

Just to the north of James Fort the archaeological team has exposed the entire breadth of an early 17th-century well and its builder’s trench. Meanwhile over […]

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A cropped version of a painting of Jamestown in the Civil War. The crumbling church tower stands in the middle. In front of it are earthworks.

Jamestown in the Civil War

Go beyond 1619: Black History at Jamestown Jamestown in the Civil War Today, many are familiar with the history of the first Africans forcibly brought to […]

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Excavating a 17th-century well found in the Confederate moat

January 2023

All efforts in the field are focused on a brick-lined well just to the northwest of James Fort’s north bulwark. Found unexpectedly while following the trail […]

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View of Lisbon from the Lisbon Castle

Jamestown Goes to Portugal

­­Every January, the Society for Historical Archaeology and the Advisory Council on Underwater Archaeology, two international organizations for professional archaeology, sponsor the Conference on Historical and […]

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A heavily-used hone (whetstone)

December 2022

Archaeologists are conducting ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveys just south of the Jamestown Rediscovery Center prior to the installation of the Ellen Kelso Memorial Garden. They hope […]

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Site Supervisor Anna Shackelford takes record shots of the "burial" site north of the Church Tower

November 2022

As colder weather rolls in several of the dig sites are being backfilled, preserving the archaeological resources now that their excavations are complete. Before the dirt […]

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Dr. Raquel Fleskes sampling an early Jamestown colonist in the Bolnick lab at Beach Hall, University of Connecticut.

Do You Think You Know Who You Are?

­­This past week, Directors of Collection and Archaeology, Michael Lavin and David Givens, transported skeletal remains for ancient DNA (aDNA) testing to Dr. Deborah Bolnick’s Ancient […]

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Leah leads a group of DAACS attendees across the site

The Archaeology of Slavery

In 2019, I was offered the opportunity to apply to an NEH funded fellowship, the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS) Summer Institute. This program […]

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Director of Archaeology David Givens, Preston Senderoff, and graduate student Stephanie Scialo inspect the sediment in the core sample.

What Lies Beneath the Swamp

This past Wednesday, members of the Jamestown Rediscovery team joined Dr. Will Ouimet of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Connecticut (UConn) and […]

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The archaeological team at work in the burial excavation structure.

October 2022

In the southwest corner of James Fort, in a structure resembling a greenhouse, the lights were on well past sunset several nights this month. Inside, the […]

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