Artifacts unearthed in 2015 suggest that some mysteriously missing members of the English colony survived and assimilated with the Indians.
The search began as soon as the Englishman John White landed on Roanoke Island, North Carolina, more than 427 years ago. Appointed governor of the fledgling colony of Roanoke by Sir Walter Raleigh, John White returned from England, his holds loaded with the extremely anticipated commodities.
Since then, explorers, historians, archaeologists and amateurs have searched for what happened to the 115 men, women and children who made up England’s very first colony on the New World. Attempts to solve the longest historical mystery in U.S. history, dubbed the Lost Colony Mystery, have taken the form of dozens of theories, but have so far provided no hard evidence.
Today, two independent teams claim to be in possession of archaeological remains that suggest at least some of the missing settlers may have survived, potentially splitting into two camps and settling with local Indians.
Meanwhile, at the continental site of Albemarle Bay near the town of Edenton, North Carolina, Nick Luccketti of the First Colony Foundation believes he unearthed pottery used by settlers who disappeared after their departure from the colony of Roanoke.
Members of both teams acknowledge that they are not yet in a position to claim to have solved this complex conundrum. Most of their peers doubt whether these artifacts can be associated with any ill-fated settlers, given that it is difficult to date them precisely.
Excavations indicate a significant move from Roanoke Island, where frustrated researchers find little trace of early European settlers.
A Gentleman’s ring
Nestled in an oak forest near Pamlico Bay, Cape Creek was the site of an important city and commercial hub for Croatoans. Under Horton’s supervision, volunteers search the mud of a nearby trench using fine mesh sieves. The Dawnson’s two young girls have a keen eye for small Venetian glass beads.
During a two-day excavation in July 2015, the sieves uncovered numerous Native American and European materials, such as deer and turtle bones, handcrafted and imported bricks, Native American pottery, large pieces of European iron, fragments of a 16th-century pistol, as well as a small copper carnation that certainly belonged to an English nobleman.
One of the most unusual recent discoveries is a small piece of slate used as a tablet accompanied by a lead stylus. A small letter «M»» can be seen in a corner. A similar but much larger slate plate was also unearthed in Jamestown.
A « X » to mark location.
If the gold ring inspired Horton to go digging in Hatteras, it was a watercolor map from 1585 drawn by White that prompted the First Colony Foundation to look towards the continent.
Known as La Virginea Pars and part of the British Museum’s permanent collection, the map made headlines in 2012 when researchers spotted a small four-pointed star hidden under a «patch» added to the map. The theory is that the symbol indicates the location of a continental fort.
In 2006, Luccketti and his colleague Clay Swindell of the Albemarle Museum studied a site in the vicinity of the fort image later spotted on White’s map. They found Native American pottery in remarkable quantities there. Archaeologists suspect the site of being the small Native American town of Mettaquem.
Mark