taped. but he came out of a well. so, you know, often in our wells at the bottom of wells we do find complete ceramic forms because people are taking these vessels to the well to wash out for to collect water and they accidentally knock them in. otherwise things are used until they're broken and then thrown away. but we really -- we like to find wells because the more complete nature of the object. so, i've got flags about the room next to ceramics indicating the countries from which they came from. this bartman jug actually has a date, see, '04. so that would be 1604. and the motif here is the interior eagle, the double-headed eagle. the materials on this table are extremely interesting because they come from an early well that we found in the center of the fort. we're calling it john smith's well because he did order a well to be dug late 1608 when he was leading the colony, and we -- by the materials that are in it, we believe that this well was fill in in the spring of 1610 just as

the colonists had decided to abandon the fort and give up. they were stopped from doing that by lord delawoir the new president who came in as they were just leaving. however, that's already after they dumped a lot of stuff down the well on their rush to depart. and in here we find interesting things such as evidence of the starving time, winter and spring of 1609, 1610. so, these are dogs. we have at least 19 different dogs represented from the mandibles, and you can see the cut mark on the bone. to get to the tongue and the cheek meat of the dog. we know these are horses. there's seven horses here.

and during the starving time. and i've got lots of, lots and lots of evidence of that, but here's some samples. here's one canon bone from a horse, a leg bone, and it's been chopped very clearly there. and then i've got horse teeth. this one has been really cooked. the teeth are indicating animals between the ages of 10 and 20. so, the poor horses did not survive that starving time. but i've got things also like whalebones. so, the colonists were eating whatever they could get their hands on. whale. i've got bottlenose dolphin here, the bottlenose dolphin jaw. box turtle, box lunches. they talk about these. we found lots and lots of these

shells. but they'd actually scrape out the bones on the inside and reuse the shell as a little drinking bowl. we also have the arrival of a group of cast-aways from the "sea venture" shipwreck in 1609. they spent nine months in bermuda. when they came, they brought be bermuda seashells. like this bing scallop, you don't find them that large in bermuda anymore. this is really large. and the beautiful conch shell. they are collecting them like we would, of souvenirs of their voyage, but also if they should get back to england, they can

sell these to gentlemen who are collecting exotic objects from around the world. and speaking of exotic object, on this bottle here, which is probably -- it probably held pharmaceutical substance and medicinal substances, we actually found beatle beetle in this bottle and we had them analyzed. i have them in here. you can see them. and they are strawberry root beetle. so, the first documented evidence of this beetle in the new world. and it's not surprising. we've had other soil samples tested. and we have located bedbugs of and powder-puff beetles and sawtooth beetles. we know there were black rats brought in from the colonists. so, all these hitchhikers that

the colonists were, you know, not bringing on purpose. we have evidence of indian women in this time period being in the fort. and this is a needle made from the rib of a deer. and it's actually if you look closely, it's decorated here, zigzag line. and these were used to make the woven masks that the clonists loved. it appears that the indian women are probably sitting in the fort and producing those for the colonists' use. we also have evidence of facing projectile points or arrow points from the tips of deer antlers. so, that's another native technology that's being produced. this, and here's -- see, these are shell beads made from this mussel.

it lives around jamestown. and this is a production site for these beads because they're all unfinished. we've strung these together, but they are not finished. they are all rough around the edges. if they should be finished, they end up being very tiny. they're like this. and so these are -- since they're all unfinished, then we know someone's in the process of making these. and that would be most likely the indian women, because that's part of their role is to make the material culture in their society. we have a lot of writing from the early period. the most prolific was john smith. and there is a compilation of his work called the complete works of john smith by philip barber we use quite a bit. there were other eyewitnesss, like, other eyewitness accounts,

people who were here and they're writing letters back. the communications between the colony and england were really censored very strongly. i mean, the company -- virginia company did not want any negative news to get out. i mean, a little bit did. but they really -- we don't know how many letters got shredded, you know, that they just didn't make it through because they had such negative comments. so, we do have some records. and we know events. we know when ships are arriving. we know from where they're coming. and, you know, it's kind of spotty evidence, but the artifacts in some cases are illustrating what we know from the records, but in other cases they're bringing up questions of things that were not really addressed in the records. one instance of that, for instance, is children. children don't get recorded because they're not considered important enough. women rarely do as well. but in this early context, john

smith's well, we have an object that was used by a child who's teething, a quite young child. this silver whistle and teething stick. this is pink -- this is coral here. it would be much longer. it's very similar to what you see here with king charles as a baby. he's got one in his hand. and so this is quite early, you know, for children. we do know that a couple children were born on bermuda. one of those survived and would have been here by 1610. and a few ships arrived in jamestown in the late summer of 1609, and they had some women and presumably children aboard as well. you notice that there's not much in the way of iron artifacts out, and that's because we have to maintain them in the room in

the back called the dry zone. it maintains an atmosphere, very table atmosphere for the artifacts. we keep the humidity level at no more than 20%. and i'll just run in there and bring out something pretty cool for you to see. isn't that looking into the eyes of history? these are elements from what's known as a closed bergonette helmet. it's the visor and what's known as the bafor or the children protection piece here. this is actually the top of the head. so, this has been switched around -- you know, flipped around. and what's neat is that they actually dissembled this on

purpose. you could see where the two elements would hook together. it would hook there and it would hook into the piece right there. and they're adapting to their environment. they're finding this too cumbersome probably to fight the indians wearing all this gear. so, they're taking this off the skull piece, so they still have the head protection without this part of it. this was found in a cellar that was first dug in 1607 and then filled in by 1617 when another structure was built on top of it. >> how many people were doing this work here? >> well, we have a pretty small staff. i'm the curator, and then i have an assistant who helps me with the processing of the material cataloging. and then we use quite a few volunteers to help in that process as well. especially in the washing and sorting out materials and numbering. but that takes a special person. they have to undergo a lot of training for that because they're very small numbers.

we joke by the time we're through with them they can get jobs in the mall writing people's names on grains of rice. so we're training them for this future. and other staff members, my besides my assistant are two conservators who work mostly on the iron artifacts. but any material that needs to be stabilize they'd will do. so that's the cura to rial side of things. >> my name is don warke. i'm wound telephone archaeologists on staff, but i do some conservation in the lab. what i'm doing this afternoon is conservation of lead objects we see on the site. lead also has to be preserved. it's a fairly simple process. a lead object will come into the

lab, and depending upon how badly it corroded, we usually use a microscope with the procedure. basically, we'll take a scalpel and remove the service corrosion with the scalpel, using the microscope. and after that's done, we take the object and put it into an acid bath. which removes the remaining surface corrosion from the object. we put it through a water rinse to remove all of the remaining acid. and then we put it in another solution that essentially finishes the process of the corrosion removal process. and then the lead object will go into a vacuum chamber or water or remaining water is essentially removed from it,

it's totally dried, and then what we'll do is we'll take the object and put two protective clear coatings over it. so after that's done, it's basically hermetically sealed. it's not opened, exposed to the environment, and hopefully, it will remain in the condition it's in while in perpetuity, and then possibly if the object is good enough, it might go into our museum. it's a pierced lead plate. now what they might have been using this for i really couldn't tell you. it could have -- you know, a strainer at the bottom of something possibly. i really couldn't say for sure. we'd probably have to research it. sword hilt. if you've seen swords, it's the basket. you'll grab the sword here and then the blade will come out this direction.

it protects an individual if the another individual is slashing, trying to slash his hand, a hand guard. it will protect the hand. we found a number of those. michael is preserving this one. i'm dan gamble, and i'm one of the conservators here at jamestown. i've been here about 11 years. this is michael lavin at the air abrasion unit. he's our senior conservator. and right now, he's working on a sword hilt. and the process that he's doing right now is called air abrasion. and basically, what it is it's a mini sand blaster. and instead of sand, we use aluminum oxide. and he's removing the rust from that artifact. you can see the big chunks of rust there are coming down to a darker layer, which we call the

magnatite layer. that's the last true form of that artifact. so all of the rust, the heavy rust, will be removed. we use air abrasion probably most out of all of the operations in conservation. and it's mostly used for just iron. we do everything from sword hilts, which you have here, to pieces of armor, to tools, to various other things. but it's the safest way to remove the rust that we had found. you can see that he's being very careful. he's not shooting directly at the artifact but is kind of shooting off to the side. and the rust is coming off somewhat easily, but it takes a little bit of work, a little bit of patience, and a lot of skill. takes a long time to develop the skills to be able to do a piece like that. it's normal for us to sit here eight hours a day doing this.

and we enjoy it. we really, really enjoy it. and i'm holding a rapier hilt that came out of what we're interpreting as our corps d' guard. i want to explain one of the processes that are vital to conservation and that's the use of the digital x-ray equipment in order to take a picture through this artifact to help guide us. we knew what it was when it came out of the ground, but it was corroded with all of this iron oxide. what we're aiming for is this nice and dark, almost black magnetite layer. so let's drop it into the x-ray machine. this is our digital x-ray cabinet. the x-ray source is up above. this does the majority of the artifacts that we find.

the digital portion of it is the sensor, about 40 centimeters by 30 centimeters and the majority of the cost of this piece of equipment. so we have already warmed it up. let me go ahead and turn it on. and instantly, the pictures should start appearing. now, what you're looking at is an x-ray through the artifact, and if you look at the sword guards here on the outside, the areas that are in bright white are where there's still some existing metal left, but the areas that are gray, that shows you that there's actually no metal in this.

you can see the metal kind of ends right about there. and what that tells us is that we would not be able to electrolacize this object. we would have to use air abrasion using the aluminum oxide under pressure, pushed through a very narrow carbide tip to blow away the surface corrosion product. and stopping at that black magnetite. there's only little pockets of iron, existing iron left, but this is a very important artifact and one that is most likely going to end up in the museum, complete rapier hilt from a fort period building. >> well, i have been working on the project since the beginning, since 1994, and gosh, i hope i retire still doing it. i think even if we should stop the project outside, there's

still would be lots and lots of work to do inside. actually, archaeology of the future will be working with the collections that have been excavated in the past. and we make discoveries in the lab. not everything is discovered in the field. i think people are under the misconception that all the discovery is in that moment outside, but it happens inside as well. and quite a lot, too. so yeah, there's enough to keep us going for a really long time. >> a complete piece.

>> you're watching american history tv on c-span 3. and joining us now live from the historic jamestown settlement, bill kelso, the director of the jamestown rediscovery project, the archaeological project, and senior curator, bly straube, who are going to spend the next hour with us. and taking your phone calls and your comments and questions as well. thank you to both of you for joining us on this beautiful saturday afternoon. we'd like to invite our viewers to be part of the conversation, obviously. here are the numbers to use. if you're in the eastern of central time zone, 202-737-0001. for viewers in mountain pacific

zones, 202-737-0002. you can also participate by twitter. our handle is @c-spanhistory. we'll try to read some of those tweets. we'll hear from bill and bly straube. i understand, bly, you have something with you that was discovered on the project today. can you show it to us and tell us what it is? >> yes. wonderful things show up all the time. today the archaeologists uncovered this wonderful medallion from a german stoneware bottle. made in germany near cologne. it's unique. we don't have one like it so i'll have to do research to figure out who it is depicting. it would have been a bottle that would contain beer or wine, so for alcoholic beverage. >> you had mentioned in the hour long preview, the documentary we just saw, that you had to learn

how to read the artifacts 1 1/2 million artifacts you've uncovered in the last 20 years or so. what do you mean by reading it? what's the most important part of that? >> what i meant by that was that i have to learn the context of each of the materials. why they were made, where they were made, what their purpose was, who may have carried them to jamestown, what their use may have been in jamestown. it may have been different from their original usage in england. and it becomes very complex when you try to put all those stories together, because each material type has a different kind of story to tell. >> we will get to our phone calls in just a moment. bill kelso, let me ask you a basic question about why you chose that spot in 1993 to start digging. why that spot on the james river? >> that's a fairly complex

question. there were indications in historical records that one in particular said that the church of the early 17th century was in the middle of the fort, and the one above-ground survivor from jamestown that we have is a brick church tower. so, i thought maybe in that vicinity there could be some remains of the fort. we also had, bly and others looked at some artifacts that what turned up inadvertently through utility trenches and things like that that seemed old enough, military things. and it was an area that just was not yet explored enough to say that this was where the fort was and conventional wisdom was that the fort had washed away on the western end of the island. we're not quite on the western end. but as it turned out, the fort

not only did not wash away, but it's basically all here. >> we have callers waiting with questions and comments for both of you. let's go to jonathan in san diego. go ahead, jonathan. >> caller: good morning, or good afternoon out there. two quick questions. in your taped piece mr. kelso mentioned that jamestown gets second billing if you will to plymouth in the mythology or the common knowledge of how the new world was colonized and i wonder if you could elaborate on that. and then second, he also mentioned the lost colony in roanoke, which even preceded jamestown. i'm wondering if there's any new work or any new findings down there that's of any interest. and thanks for putting on these type of programs. they're great. >> okay. your first -- the first question was what again? i didn't quite hear it.

>> the first question was why does the jamestown settlement in his perception, i guess, quoting you from the -- >> plymouth, yeah, yeah. >> take a second billing to jamestown -- or to plymouth, rather, i'm sorry. >> well, yeah. every year we have thanksgiving right? that just focuses again on plymouth, it's sort of an automatic thing. in the 19th century, the story of the earliest english settlement began to come from historians out of new england. and there was a lot of focus on that. although you do the math, jamestown was settled 1607, plymouth in 1620. and another thing is -- and then after the american civil war, the histories were also written mostly by the victors who, of course, was the northern states, so that had something to play in it. and also the site, the actual site, was gone whereas the town

of plymouth exists. so without that physical evidence that we now have, i think the jamestown story was minute niced. minimized. >> memphis, tennessee, is next -- eugenia, hang on a moment. >> go ahead, bill kelso, and finish your comments. >> well, the lost town, bly could speak to that, there's really exciting things that have been found just in the last few weeks. >> yes, it has to do with a map, 400-year-old map from the -- that has been in the british museum, and it's been recently discovered that there's a patch, very interesting patch, which when back lit was discovered underneath it was the outline of a fortification. and it happens to be in the area where historian jim horn believes the colonists from the lost colony went, the areas

to which they went. and we've done some preliminary work there, found some interesting artifacts that looked like they could be 16th century, so this is all brand-new and we're just sort of on the cusp we think some pretty exciting discoveries. >> caller's from memphis next eugenia, go ahead with your comments. >> caller: my husband's ancestors came to jamestown in 1616 and then we see him in elizabeth city, i find him in elizabeth city. and i wondered exactly where elizabeth city was in reference to jamestown. >> well, it's now where hampton modern hampton is. actually, virginia beach, it was a larger county at one point that took almost all of hampton roads. so it's not far from here, probably 20, 30 miles. >> raleigh, north carolina, next up is betty. go ahead with your comments.

>> caller: hi, bly, this isty fitzgerald. ancient planters and we just had dr. earl imes, a curator from raleigh and we're all excited about what's going on the pimlico. and we're excited when you come down, we'll see you in the fall, and i've been coming up there regularly. now, my question was, of course, i have the bellarmine jar, and that's what i'm doing my article on right now, b-e-l-l-a-r-m-i-n-e, you call it by another name and you also know why we don't celebrate -- well, we know some things that were done by henry adams but we don't use those names. you can't, but i can. why don't you use the word bellarmine jar? >> you want to fill us about betty's comments there. >> sure. we use the term bartman, which means bearded man, because the

jugs actually have a face on the neck which has a bearded man. that's the german term. bellarmine is really a collector's term. it actually started in the 17th century. they began calling these jugs bellarmines after cardinal bellarmino who was very upset with king james for the way he was treating the english catholics. and it was done in a sort of satirical way. the dutch and english protestants started to call the jugs that held alcohol bellarmines as a sort of jab at bellarmino. >> bill kelso, in a recent article you talked about your perception of the urgency to do much more archaeological work there at jamestown over the next 20 years because of the -- because of the rapid decomposition of materials and iron and things like that. how much work is left to be done at jamestown?