pin that down. we've never seen any native american burials here at this point. >> we have a question on twitter, bill kelso and bly straube, what would you like to see happen at dig sites when you have finished your research? >> well, i can just speak to the site itself. we spent a lot of time trying to interpret the footprint that we find below ground of buildings and the shape of the fort and all without doing total reconstructions, we go to a point where we really don't some of the things the way the building looked. my first desire when i first came to this area 50 years ago was to come and walk on the grounds, walk the site of this

first fort in 1607 fort, and i was told it was washed away in the river. and we can now do that. we'd have to do some three-dimensional markings for it to be interpreted. i hope people can come here and understand the really hallowed place automatically by what we've put on the landscape. i don't know you might have more to say on that. >> we are going to spend the next half hour with bly straube and bill kelso, live from jamestown. >> we are taking your questions. here's warrenson, virginia, charlie, go ahead. >> caller: thanks so much for taking my call. i'm a public high school history teacher in northern virginia. i want to thank bill and bly for

digging for the truth for our rich virginia history. a couple questions. one is artifacts, when you dig for them, what's the average depth in the ground? with the exception of the confederate earthworks. i understand that. is it by gravity? what's the average departmenth and why are they in the ground certain places deeper than others? the red brick structure in the background, is that a rebuilt church or is part of it original? and can you speak to the settlement that was in maine that was i don't know if it was

abandoned by cold weather perhaps. thank you so much. >> okay. that's a lot of questions there. as far as depth. it depends where the object was dropped or thrown. if it goes down a well, it can be 15 feet deep. if it's in a layer that's just been laid on the ground and, say, when a confederate earthwork was built here, some ground's removed, it would be right on the surface, so it just all depends how the land was used where the artifact's found. let's see. go ahead. >> the church. >> oh, the church. the church you see behind us. yes, it's a 1907 reconstruction behind an original church tower from the 17th century. >> are you surprised that you found as much material as you have? that's a spot right there on the river. you get very strong weather and high tides and yet there's 1.5 million artifacts in your archaeology lab. >> well, i've got a couple theories for that. one, they were under siege most of the time. i think the colonists, the first three years or so spent so much time inside. they're not going out. going to leave anything outside very much. they didn't spend much time out

there. the other thing is so many people died immediately and their possessions, you know, are just tossed away. >> i think that's a good reason that they are sort of ownerless objects sort of kicking around. >> let's go back to calls. martinsville, virginia, gene, hi. >> caller: calling from western virginia, and mr. kelso, i have your book. i enjoyed reading it. when the jamestown settlement took place, the little ice age was going on and the indian people had very little corn.

and how did this drought affect the jamestown settlement? and number two, i want to comment on the indian people. you're chose to two indian communities there at jamestown and charles city county, the chick hominy over 1,000 people and the settlement the jamestown and their ancestors. have the indian descendants been involved? do you get feedback, participation, from the indian people there in the community? thank you so much. >> well, i can speak to the second question first. and that, yeah, there's much interaction with our project and the current united tribes. in fact, today there are some members of this tribe on the site demonstrating and some in

the original draft of the virginia indians. so, they are as interested in what we are finding here and we find a lot of artifacts that were traditionally inside the fort. so, we know that it wasn't one of those cases where the indians were on one side of the palisade and the settlers were on the inside. there was interaction going on, no question about that. and the first question, again -- >> he was talking about a period of drought. he talked about drought. >> oh, drought. you want to take that? >> well, yes, he's referring to the scientific evidence, boring of cypress trees that has shown that there was drought for 10 years, 1606 to 1612. the worst drought in almost the worst drought in almost a thousand years. we feel that it kind of explains some things. that maybe it explains why things fell apart so quickly, that there was stress in the environment, stress on the indian community, stress on the animals. there weren't so many animals running around on the island. so it was something the english

did not understand not having been here. and it kind of explains a lot of the friction that evolved. >> and add to that is that they had a problem with the water as well. the drier it is, then the higher the salt content goes up. the saltwater goes further inland and jamestown is where the salt and the fresh come together. it's called brackish water. but in a drought time it would be very salty and that was poisoning them we think, too. >> was there another settlement after the original settlement ended there? >> didn't end. >> this is the first permanent english settlement in america. so, there's still -- you know, it's still occupied. >> it was a colonial capital for almost 100 years. >> that spot in particular, did they come back to the spot on the tip of the island there?

>> we have remains of buildings that were built after the middle of the 17th century right in the fort. they're in the fort but they're not part of the fort. we do find artifacts that date later, in later use. but most of it became the churchyard. so, that's where -- what we have there are burials. >> and to agriculture and it's all planted in corn. thank goodness, because john smith has proclaimed this is a very fine place to erect a great city. but if it had been, we would not have the archaeological resources to find. >> let's go to howard in san diego, sorry. >> caller: yes, thank you for taking my call.

i had a question about any linkage of george washington or the washington family to jamestown and the area. i know his grandfather came over in the early or 1720s or 1730s, john augustine washington, and i see small towns named washington. of course, it was a common name in virginia and northern north carolina. i've also read something somewhere and i'm not sure here but that perhaps some washington family relatives came over earlier. do you have any information on that? >> not that i know of. not at all. at jamestown we don't. they settled northern -- the northern part of virginia, on the rappahannock and the

potomac, in the 18th century, where there was vacant land. >> we have another caller in california. this is ronnie, go ahead. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. dr. kelso, when did cremation start in the united states and should it be banned? >> your question was about cremation, sir? >> i don't know when -- i don't know. >> should it be banned? >> well, as an archaeologist people get cheated in the future by not being able to study skeletal remains. they really do. i don't know about banning, but making sure that some people get buried traditionally. >> with lots of rapiers, right? >> yes. >> we were fortunate to have a tour group with you as you led our cameras through the settlement there, and we got to

go into the lab there. how often do you both personally get to take students or groups through the site? >> it seems continually. every day that's some kind of a tour that crops up if i'm out here. but we also have a schedule tour the first and third tuesday of every month through november, which is called in the trenches. this is by -- make an appointment and there's a fee and i personally take people around the site on those days. and we have another tour for the collections. >> we have new philadelphia, ohio, is next and jason, you're on the air. >> caller: [ inaudible ] >> jason. speak up, i can't hear your question. go ahead. >> caller: what happened to the [ inaudible ] tribe? do they still exist? >> it was a question about what happened to the tribe. >> the pallatan? >> yes. >> there are groups called the

united tribes of virginia. there are i believe eight. and they are descendants on reservations, one of the oldest reservations in the country. so, they're still here as they say. >> we had a caller earlier ask about the lost colony in north carolina, some recent news that they may have discovered a map or indication of a fort on a map in the british museum in looking at it. has anybody done any excavations in that area? >> we have done some preliminary survey of the area and found some interesting hints of early artifacts, 16th century. possibly. and so we have plans to revisit the area very, very soon. >> how much are both of you involved or in contact with your british colleagues on early colonial or precolonial history? >> well, we both have, you know. >> we're both fellows of the society of antiqueries. you have to be elected to join,

an honorary english society, british society. it's very old. 200 years old -- 400 years old. >> much of the records, are much of the records kept in the uk? are there good records about jamestown, for example? >> well, yeah. most of them are known and have been looked at. and we have transcriptions of them. but, you know, there's always a surprise discovery like we were talking about, the lost colony map. we actually have studied another map in the british museum. it shows -- really shows that the fort -- the actual fort where we found it was already -- that location had been put on a map by a mapmaker in 1608 and no one had recognized that that was really, you know, pinpointing the site. >> hear from our callers again. oxford, mississippi, joanne, hello. >> caller: good afternoon. i'm enjoying this enormously.

i saw the exhibit at the smithsonian called written bone and it's one of the most fascinating things i've ever seen. i noticed you showed the captain gosnold reproduction. but you had a video of a woman and there was an interpretive reconstruction of a woman who would walk away from you in the video. you would see how you started with her skeleton and then the forensic reproduction. she walked with a limp. it was stunning. it was stunning. and i was wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about who you think she was and the other reproduction was of the head of a woman who was believed to be a slave and you determined that based on the shape of her back which would have been bent in such a way over years and years of literally back-breaking labor. if you could tell us about those

people, i'd really love to hear it. >> those individuals actually aren't from our site. they're from other 17th century sites in virginia. so, we don't really know particulars about them. but it is a fascinating exhibit. just to learn -- to see what you can learn from skeletal material. and we understand it's been extremely popular. >> that caller mentioned being fascinated by the video. over the 20 years that you've been working at jamestown, what's been the biggest technological leap that has helped your work there? for both of you? >> well, technological. it's just the geographic information system. the fact that we can record in

three dimension where we find something, you know, the depth and the location in the fort. and all that information we can put in photographs and catalog material from the artifact finds. it can be so accessible at one computer. to me it's just a marvel. i started out with pencil and paper and that was our high technology 50 years ago in archaeology. but this is just astounding. and without it we would be really hard put to keep track of all the thousands of pieces of data that come out. >> next caller is bill in lakewood, colorado. bill? >> caller: yeah, dr. kelso, this is bill hughes and i wanted to thank you for what you did. i was stationed at ft. houston back in 1966. and i spent many weekends trying to find jamestown. and i was totally amazed that it wasn't -- couldn't find it. that's one. two, i did find in the church in

williamsburg, i did find george washington's grandmother. i was doing some rubbings on the old -- so, i don't know if it's true or not, but i was always, you know, i have a picture of that gravestone. i was really enthusiastic. but i want to thank you. you really filled a big void in my life. >> well, i'm glad we could find jamestown finally, that's good. >> bill kelso's book "jamestown the buried truth" if you want some further details -- if you can't get to the site or you've been there and you want more information, the book "jamestown, the buried truth." next up is bridgeport, ohio. hello, lou, go ahead. turn down your set there and go ahead with your question or comment for bill kelso or bly straube. i'm going to put you on hold,

lou. bill kelso, we just showed your book, "the buried truth." how long did that one take you to write? >> well, it came out in '06. so, it's always -- it's always in production, really, and a revision, too. i'm working on a revision of that because we found so much since '06. but that basically tells the story the way i saw it. and, i mean, it was -- since we started the project in 1994, i guess you could say it took 12 years. >> the caller a few minutes ago calling and saying he was in 1966 trying to find jamestown. do you find a lot of amateur archaeologists telling you much of the same thing? >> no. i've kind of thought what he was saying it's so confusing here because there's other types of jamestowns around here. and the signs are just everywhere, and it's confusing for a visitor to come in. that may be what he was up

against. >> let's try lou in bridgeport, ohio. go ahead. >> caller: yes. i thank you for taking my call. i was wondering, it's -- >> there as all this talk about the settlers in jamestown but i was wondering how it affected the endians, the natural inhabitants of the area when the settlers came to jamestown? thank you. >> i didn't get that question. >> i didn't either. >> that caller was on the impact of the indian culture, the native american culture, you touched on that a little bit on the artifacts you found there.

but more broadly what was the impact of the english settlement there? >> well, ultimately the population was minimized of the virginia indians. it's hard to generalization about the impact of the two cultures on each other immediately. my view is that the indians were -- although they far outnumbered the colonists to begin with, they still saw iron coming in, they saw guns, they saw sailing boats that the technology would be useful to them. i think they let jamestown survive. they could have wiped it out but let it the survive because of the fact that this could technologically enhance their own world. you know, the empire really and help them against their enemies. >> here's deerfield, mass, todd your question or comment. >> yes, first of all, thank you for taking my call, dr. kelso.

this is a question for you. the martins hundreds site what was discovered by iver knoll hume, how much overlap is there between your project and the project that iver did? did he have any interest in coming to your site and seeing what was going on as well? >> yes, in fact, he was on an advisory board for the first year here. and he kind of pointed to the first place to dig, as a matter of fact, in the beginning. and had quite an impact. how did it relate to martin? it dates after 1619, i believe. i worked on that, too. in a survey years ago with him. and so that existed down river. it's probably six, eight miles away. and it was a particular, we call it particular plantation.

the new way of the virginia company was settling virginia. and jamestown was the seat of the government. so that would have been -- there would have been representatives from that area in the first representative assembly. so you know, there was always some kind of connection. then it went on to be a plantation all during the 17th century. >> how far is the original historic jamestown from the current seat of government, richmond? how far down the james river? >> 50 mile. i guess 50. >> sebring, florida, hi there. >> go ahead. >> sebring, florida. >> i was fortunate enough to be able to bring my children from the ipswich and felix area of england to virginia. so they got to see where the settlers came from versus where they were coming to.

and they knew that they lived in big mansions in england and over there, over here, we were living in mud huts. and i would also like to know if you are checking around in glousster around powatan's chimney? if so, are you finding anything of interest there? >> no at another site. at another site was the -- was really where powatan his major village when the settlers came in. it's some distance away from the powatan chimney. that i think is legendary more than real that that was wherever that that was a major powatan location at all. >> here's los angeles and

carrey, go ahead. >> i was wondering if you've done any excavating in the water where the portion of the fort goes out into the water. >> no, we haven't because of the fact that the fort is nine feet above the bottom of the river right next at the shoreline. so, and he's saying so that that level is the level of much 1607. and so, anything that was left from the fort that is -- that was in a context above nine feet would be washed away, gone. i mean, there's no -- there's nothing that could be out there except maybe the very bottom of a well. the only part missing is about a 17% pie-shaped piece of the fort that did wash away before a seawall was put down to protect, to stop the erosion. >> how easy is to dig? it looks like kind of sandy soil from our video.

>> yes, it is sandy soil. the trouble is, when it dries out, it becomes like concrete. so it's tough. the real problem here is that we had the best time we can excavate is during the summer when students are available for field schools. we will have one every year, but that's also when things heat up around here. so it is a very, very tough physically challenging operation. >> a couple more calls. lansing, michigan. hi to liz. you're on the air. >> thank you for taking my call. i visited jamestown, oh, at least 30 years ago. and just from watching your program, it looks like the development, the research has come much further along than what i had seen. but at the time, i was in a small private tour company and the tour guide at the time said that some of the settlers from jamestown or they were seeking

people from eastern europe, specifically like poland to come and work in glass making. and because of the forests in the area, that would have allowed the settlers to build, you know, the fires they needed to work the sand to make it into glass. i'm of polish descent. i've always wondered if that was true or not. is there anything to that from what the tour guide told me 30 years ago? >> yes, we know from the historical documentation that both individuals from poland and from germany were brought to make glass and to make pitch and tar and so ashes, which was a commodity very much in demand in england and expensive to produce because of the lack of forests. and we have found lots and lots of evidence of the glass making in the fort. it appears before they built the glass house off the island, they actually were working in the fort to make their trials of glass. so we have all these crucibles

and cullet which is used glass brought to make new glass within our fort context. >> let's go to columbia, madd and alisha, hi there. >> thank you. good afternoon. could you kindly give us the names of those i think you call them united tribes and then also could you please answer my question. are these tribes recognized by the state? and then also, are they also recognized by the u.s. government? thank you very much. >> okay. i can try to name them. there's upper and liver ch hickomy, monican, that's five at

least. and we worked primarily with the monkey and matapani and some chick an homni. they're not federally recognized. i believe they are state recognized. state recognized. >> and there are descendants of those tribes still living in the area? >> yeah, yeah, there's some out here today, as a matter of fact. >> here's new orleans and we say hello to e ads. hi. >> yes, wonderful program. a very quick statement. my mom's family always claimed they descended from a yams town captain, a captain harris. my question specifically is, what political authority would have granted military commissions to these early militia captains at that

jamestown colony? >> well, that's a very good question. there is the whole operation was run by what was called the v company, but the crown had sort of a last say in whatever they did. and they -- when the first resident governor came over, he appointed a lot of men to various military positions. so, i think it's from the crown through the company to the -- their rank. what they would have as far as military men. do you know? >> i don't know when harris was here, but it really depends on the time because 1624, virginia company lost their charters and became a royal colony. >> before we wrap up with phone