Excavating the Lost Colony Mystery: The Map, the Search, the Discovery

by Eric Klingelhofer (Editor)

The fate of Sir Walter Raleigh's 1587 "Lost Colony" on Roanoke Island has been one of the most enduring mysteries in the history of European settlement in North America. For generations, writers, scholars, and others have speculated about the disappearance of more than one hundred colonists, whose only obvious clue left behind was the word "CROATOAN" carved on the palisade of the settlement. But in the early 1990s, archaeologists at Roanoke opened fresh lines of inquiry, and in 2012 the search for evidence gained new momentum when a reexamination of an Elizabethan map revealed a hidden symbol. The symbol seemed to indicate the location of a Renaissance-style fort some distance from Roanoke Island, starting the quest for "Site X." After leading a team to explore multiple lines of research, Eric Klingelhofer here draws together the fullest possible account of what can be known today about the colony. The book features authoritative research by historians, archaeologists, and other experts, and it is richly illustrated with maps and photographs, including never-before-seen artifacts recovered in recent excavations. While some of the Lost Colony's mysteries may never be solved, readers will enjoy this informative and accessible account of efforts to reconstruct events more than four centuries ago.

Contributors Peter Barber, Phillip Evans, James Horn, Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Nicholas Luccketti, Kim Sloan, Beverly Straube, and Edward Clay Swindell.

Published in association with the First Colony Foundation.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

144 pages, Paperback

First published November 7, 2023

Reviews

[Susanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am a North Carolinian--not by birth but have lived in the great North State for over 35 years. How can anyone not be fascinated by the story of the Lost Colony? When the news of a hidden location on the John White map was released to the press, I was intrigued, but never read the follow up from this discovery until now. As it turned out, there was a whole team convened to follow up on the discovery; the team including historians, archaeologists, librarians and more. This is a curated discourse on the subsequent investigation, with each chapter written by an individual from one of these teams so one gets a unique perspective on how archaeological projects are planned and executed. So---is the colony still "lost" ? Well, maybe not entirely "lost" as there are more and more clues about how these original colonists moved inland and what happened to the various splinters when they moved (spoiler alert: across the creek from Edenton is very significant).
Coincidentally, just read "Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare's Greatest Rival" which also featured Sir Walter Raleigh and gave the English perspective of what colonization of the New World meant. This was an interesting pairing of books.
I recommend this book to anyone who in fact wondered--"what happened to that Lost Colony"?

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am torn between giving this three and four stars - would love to rate it 3 1/2!

Overall, I enjoyed learning about the latest developments and new insights. The information is highly researched and well written, but its delivery was a bit underwhelming. I certainly appreciate the many different viewpoints and scholarly perspectives, and many of the authors have space on my bookshelf in their own right. However- the format of this book was difficult to digest. Firstly, it is an awkward size; which in some ways lent itself to better display of the illustrations and maps that were presented (due to the extra available space) but made the physical handling of the book more difficult than expected. This also made the necessary flipping back and forth to view figures/maps elsewhere in the book tiresome. Perhaps better/more frequent (even repeated) figures would have made the information easier to follow. I often found myself wishing I could “zoom in” on the spots on whatever map was being discussed … such is the state of our mostly digital world these days that a physical book is found wanting in this respect. I am unsure if the kindle edition allows this?


The editing could have used another pass as well (some grammatical errors slipped through - not enough to ruin the work but does make me wonder if the publication was rushed or premature.

I also could not find a map or other physical description of the newest area of interest, Site Y. This may have been intentional but left me frustrated!

So - overall - there is a Wealth of information here, which I throughly enjoyed reading but can’t give five stars as a review because of the publication /presentation issues. Perhaps a digital video or slideshow added to the foundation’s website or YouTube channel could help readers follow along on maps and illustrations? I do want to add a thank you to the authors and editors for the tireless effort and research presented here.

[Kira · Rating 2 out of 5]

The formatting of this book made it a harder read than it had to be. I would guesstimate about 5-10% of its text is quite repetitive, re-hashing the voyage of the initial colonists. A far superior choice to the chapters would have been based on a clear and concise timeline. As it is, the book jumps around (even within the same chapter) from late 1500s to early 1700s back to mid or early 1600s. It's disorienting and I believe an intentional way to confuse the reader into just accepting their hypotheses on what became of the 'lost colony' rather being able to extrapolate one on their own. Interestingly, although they make mention of John Lawson's texts 3 times, not once do they include his mention of the indigenous populations with blue-colored eyes who came from Raleigh's ships. Again, it seems intentional to mislead the reader and discount other archaeological expeditions. I think they also jump to a lot of conclusions about their discoveries at Site X and Site Y. In the end, it's good to read about all of the digs concerning the search for the first colony, but while I had the higher expectations for this book due to my interest in the First Colony Foundation's work, I was let down by this report. In addition, the number of references to maps or figures that were not on the same page or even the following page as the text, was pretty ridiculous.