Well, another day another adventure. Started out today visiting the Jamestowne historical site. There are two Jamestown’s here, one if the original site and one is historical interpretation. So I started today at the actual site of the Jamestowne, it was the first English settlement in North America, named after King James 1 in 1607. But, the first settlement was Saint Augustine settled in 1565 by the Spanish. But Jamestowne is still considered the birth of America. The pilgrims came later, in 1620.
Jamestowne is a National Park and an active Archeological dig. They have been able to find the original walls of the fort and many of the buildings. Then you have the story of Pocahontas and how that relationship hurt and helped the relations with the settlers and the local Indians. There was a time of famine at the fort when the relations with the Indians were bad and no one could leave the fort, food had became scarce. They called this the starving time, from digs there is evidence of cannibalism, 1609-1610. Everything was just so interesting, more than can be written here.
There is a museum of the things they have found. I was talking to this lady about how they decide where to dig and she explained the process to me, they established the walls, then they create a grid, from there once they start putting the pieces together, building by building. In that time, the walls and buildings were built using wood poles, they were able to find this by the rotting wood in the ground. Very interesting, after I left the museum I saw this same lady out at the current dig site, it looked like she was reviewing something they found. I think she was the archeologist in charge. The water wells were another place, once the well dried up, they were basically used as a garbage dump, so they found many things that were essentially give many clues to life at the time.
