Skeletons From 400-Year-Old Gravesite Identified As Jamestown Leaders

Plants and Animals





Photo credit:

A team of scientists singled out the names of the four men who died in Jamestown from 1608 through 1617. Donald E. Hurlbert.

In 2013, an archaeological dig in America’s first colony of Jamestown, Virginia, uncovered four skeletons at a 1608 church (the one where Pocahontas married John Rolfe). Now, after combining skeletal analyses, chemical testing, context cues, and genealogical work, a team of researchers has revealed the identities of the four poorly-preserved remains: They belonged to colony founders and leaders who sailed across the Atlantic, according to an announcement made at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History this week.