>> it's indefinite. we have found recently that not only was it a one-acre triangular fort but it was expanded to the east, maybe doubled in size. we spent 19 years looking at this one acre. and archaeology is a little bit slow, but we really haven't been that slow. but just because there's been so much here. and so it may have been originally a four-acre size fort. and so, you know, do the math there. and then the actual town developed to the east. throughout the time that this was the capital of virginia, almost 100 years, and that has only been just superficially looked at by the national park service archaeologists, so there's no -- i would say there is just an indefinite amount of

area to look at in the future, far beyond my career, i would say. >> and your work is complicated there by the fact that that area was used as a civil war fort, fort pocahontas. >> right. yeah. in 1861, the fort pocahontas was built by the confederate army. and it -- by wherever they scooped to get earth to put up bank to protect the guns, the original -- the original 1607 settlement was being disturbed. however, where they piled the dirt, that was preserved. but so we decided that we needed to see the most preserved part of the fort under the fort, and so we looked archaeologically at the earthworks first because you had to get through that to get to the earliest site.

so, that's the reason that we had to remove some of the fort, but i'd say we dismantled it, because we recorded it all. and the artifacts that were in that dirt pile were unbelievable, as a matter of fact, too. now, as far as preservation goes, and the time limit, i'd say we know for one fact that the armor and arms and the metal objects are probably going to be gone. because what we find there's not a whole lot left of them if they're in dirt deposits. whereas when that confederate earthwork was built, some armor was found that had survived. we can compare the two and see it's in much better shape. there's real metal in the part that was found in 1861 and now, you know, it's almost gone. that's the urgency. plus the burials, too, will be gone. >> let's go back to the callers. dallas, texas, is next. chase, good afternoon. >> caller: thank you. would you comment, sir, of your examination of the forensic remains of those skeletons, the stature of these men.

it looks to me like john smith was kind of small. was that exceptional? how big were these guys? thanks. >> well, they tend to be shorter on average. but not a whole lot. and we have just finished studying a large number from a major burial ground that proves this. we're getting more statistics on that. >> i think that the whole thing about john smith being small, i've searched and searched and have not found any documentation that actually says how tall he was. and i think it all kind of stems from this illustration that was done when he is fighting a native. and the native is towering over him and he's sort of below. and i think it was done on purpose to make it look like david and goliath, that john

smith was really super worthy to defeat this native. but i don't really think that he was any shorter than anyone, the average person. >> and the site of the jamestown settlement there is the site -- the church there was where james -- john smith married pocahontas, correct? >> yes. uh-huh. we found that site, started finding it two years ago and excavated it through the end of last year. it's a super important place. because the wedding is interesting. and it's interesting to know exactly where pocahontas stood at one point which would be right in front of the altar. but the marriage itself ended what was called the first paletine war. so a period of peace went after that because -- as long as paletin lived, that is. it's a very significant find and a significant event. >> the next caller's from

note tommy nutoma, kansas. carine, hello. >> caller: thank you. i teach fifth grade history. and i wonder what are most important topics that i should relate to my students. and if you have know suggestions for resources besides the dvd from today, i'd be interested in knowing those suggestions. >> well, that's a huge question. i don't have my bibliography with me. but i know that there is one volume -- well for fifth grade, i guess it would be a little complicated. but there's a volume of original documents that teachers might want to look at before they talk to their students. it's called "jamestown narratives." and it collected most of the original eyewitness accounts of the first 15 13 to 15 years, these things that were written

about jamestown. the most important things, of course, i think really is the park and partially a national park because the first representative assembly met here and the virginia assembly is still meeting since 1619 and also the first africans came to this country in 1619, same date. so our diversity that we have, our diverse nation begins here. and bly, you might speak to other important things. >> yes. well, i think some of the most important discoveries have come up through the archaeology. and you can get some of that information from our website, the historic jamestown website. we try to put videos of our recent findings and interpretation of the artifacts. a real important thing to get across to children is that we didn't start with a bunch of lazy gentlemen who would rather bowl in the streets than work to sustain the colony. we have found a very completely different picture here. it was a very active, vibrant place. >> bly straube, in our tour

through your archaeology lab, i notice a lot of flags from foreign countries. what were they about? >> yes. i placed flags near the ceramics from the different countries where they were produced to show the visitors how diverse and varied. we have materials from turkey, china, portugal, france, italy, germany. so it's not all material from england. this is a very cosmopolitan world. people are connected and they're collecting the best wherever they can find it. >> calling from nearby hampton, virginia, we say hello to russ. >> caller: hello. first i wanted to say it's wonderful to watch something like this. i taught some online colonial history courses and i live down here as a retired army officer in hampton. dr. kelso mentioned the important date when lord delaware turned back the colonists who were evacuating the failed colony at jamestown.

and he -- lord delaware had actually landed at fort algernon on point comfort which is today's fort monroe, which has just become a national monument. my question is to what extent dr. kelso feels that any investigation by the national park service where ft. algernon and later ft. george was, would maybe possibly reveal some of the great findings that he's had at jamestown. >> well, i don't want to say anyone that it couldn't be found, you know, the actual site, because it's there somewhere. i got to study that. and the area where the fort was first built, algernon, it was sort of on a sandy spit. all this has been built up over the years. and exactly where at ft. lenore you can find it and then, of course, the construction that is going on at ft. monroe has just been astounding.

to build the fort and all the buildings and to bring landfill in and so on. it would be complicated, but it's not impossible. i'd be the last one to say it's impossible to find the fort. >> here is rochester, new york. and patricia -- excuse me, david on the line. hi. >> caller: hi, thank you. dr. kelso, i read your book. i recommend it to everybody. it makes archaeology exciting like a detective story and i recommend it to everybody. >> good. >> caller: quick questions. i have a neighbor whose name is jim rolf, and he claims he's a descendant of john rolf, is this possible? second, did you have anything to do with the movie "the new world" and how accurate do you think it is? thank you. >> okay. there are a lot of direct descendants of pocahontas and john rolf. did you say his name is rolf? i think you did. >> i think he did.

>> it's possible he is related. i think it's possible you're related. now, "the new world" yes, we were all a advisers, bly and a were advisers for that. i think it's accurate, the scene, the jamestown they built to me was very accurate. and it gave me for the first time the feeling of -- empathetic feeling of how insecure it was when they were there. now, the events are scrambled, you know, it's not -- it didn't claim to be a documentary. so i think it -- i really enjoyed the movie. bly can talk to that too. >> we are speaking -- >> it was all filmed here in virginia. >> we are speaking live with bly straube and bill kelso from historic jamestown and taking your phone calls. the numbers are 202-737-0001 on the eastern and central time zones. 202-737-0002 for mountain and pacific. and we'll also read tweets if you use the handle @cspanhistory. elizabethtown, pennsylvania.

this is patricia, go ahead. >> caller: hello. thank you for this program. i, too, have read your book, mr. kelso, and found it very interesting. i have two comments. one is relating to the previous caller. my husband is descended from pocahontas and john rolf through pocahontas' grandson -- granddaughter, excuse me, jane rolf, who married a man called robert bowling. my mother-in-law's late mother-in-law was a bowling. a few moments ago the commentator said to you this was the church where pocahontas married john smith. and as you know more than i, it was john rolf she married. but i notice that a great many people make that mistake, thinking that pocahontas married john smith. it's a pity about that. i think john rolf kind of gets pushed to the background.

thank you very much for this program. it's of great interest. >> thank you, patricia. >> thank you. >> let's go to ft. lauderdale. david's on our line in ft. lauderdale. hi, david, go ahead. >> caller: hi, dr. kelso, i would like you to comment, if you can, about the trend of american high schools starting american history off at 1870 instead of where we should be the discovery or, rather, the colonization of america. they seem to be blowing off early colonization, the founding, and everything, all the rich history leading up to the reconstruction. we've been told by our chancellor that we have to start at 1870 starting two years from now and i'd like you to comment on that. >> wow. >> i think you should fight your chancellor. >> yes.

>> get that -- there's so much that begins at jamestown. i just have to say, the representative assembly. what is a more important topic today than politics? and to go back and see, you know, that it just didn't all suddenly happen, you know, in the last 20 years i think it gives everyone a much better perspective of what's going on and affecting them in the present. and the past is prologue, they say, and i think that's very true. and you need to -- people -- i think it's really, really awful that these history courses are being dropped. people don't understand what's going on, i don't think. >> it must be an important part of british history as well, bill kelso, because you're going to be recognized we understand in a couple of weeks or later this year as a commander of the order of the british empire. so certainly, the british have a keen interest in one of their early colonies. >> yeah. that's a comment. it's not really to me.

it's to jamestown, jamestown is, if you think about it, it's the first permanent colony of the british empire. it's where it began. and from there the 13 colonies and finally it goes around the world and it's india and australia and it's huge. and of course the colonial empire, there was a lot of violence. there was a lot of unfairness and things that went on, but the traditions are out there. and it starts at jamestown. its language, rule of law, representative government, goes -- and it's embedded in these countries now even though the british are gone. so it's -- i think that the honor points to that sort of thing than it does more to something just for me. >> we're showing our viewers some pictures of you and queen elizabeth visiting the site there. what year was that? >> yeah. 2007. the queen was here. and in two weeks i was given a notice that i was supposed to

give her a one-on-one tour of the fort without crowds, you know, just very together. and she said, well, they said she wanted to have a reflective moment. and so, you know, i was kind of -- i was pretty petrified about that. what am i going to do? so anyway, i did mention as we came to the center of the fort that this is where the british empire began and she kind of almost -- she didn't wink, but i could just tell that that's why she was there and that's i was standing there at that point and that's why she visited jamestown 50 years after she first visited jamestown as a matter of fact. >> here is burr ridge, illinois, and hello to anna. >> caller: hello? >> you're on the air, anna, go ahead. >> caller: oh, okay. hello to everyone. i wanted to know, have you found any remains of pocahontas and i wanted to know if you did, what age did she die of, young or older?

>> pocahontas died in england and is buried in england, so we have not found any remains of pocahontas at jamestown. that's the straight answer. and she -- let's see, her age, what would her age be? >> early 20s. >> yeah, early 20s. >> tell us about some of the remains -- >> but she was buried at gray's end in england. >> tell us about some of the remains you have found there at jamestown. >> well, we have excavated a number of burials. one of which i think the most important of which it was a burial of a captain. we know it was a captain because on the coffin what was left of the coffin there was what looked like a spear, but it turns out it's a leading staff which a captain would carry in front of his troops. and the remains are of a man that was age 36, and that's when the real mastermind according to

john smith behind this whole operation here was a man by the name of captain bartholomew gosnold. people don't hear about it, he died that first summer. was only at a jamestown a few months. but he had connections to the crown to get the charter, to form the colony. and he had the connections with money, merchants in london to finance the venture. so, a real unsung hero and i think that's probably of the one most important discoveries made. it's not absolutely positive it's him. we even did dna testing, but all of the evidence right now is circumstantial evidence, points to the fact that this captain was remains of gosnold. >> bly straube, outside of remains, what is the most significant find or group of finds that you've seen in your years there? >> oh, goodness. that's really a hard question. i'll tell you one of my favorites, though, it's a roman oil lamp from the first century

a.d. and a real surprise. but an object that someone in england, in london, because it's a type of find you would find in roman london context, someone treasured it and brought it with them to the new world. >> let's hear from gillette, wyoming, next up. eric, hi there. >> caller: hi. my question is outside of the marriage of pocahontas to john smith, is there any archaeological data regards to any other intermarriage or interbreeding with colonists with other native american women and subsequent offspring to that region? >> i think eric repeated my john smith/john rolf mistake. but go ahead. >> i know, i know. john rolf, not smith. no, we haven't.

the burials that have been analyzed so far are european. by forensic studies, we could pin that down. there's really no -- we've never seen any native american burials here at this point. >> we have a question on twitter, bill kelso and bly straube that asks 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 where 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. but now people can do that. we'd have to do some three-dimensional markings for it to be interpreted. so i'm just hoping that in the future people can come here and they'll be able to understand it, understand this really hallowed place automatically by the way -- what we've put on the landscape. i don't know, bly 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're taking your tweets. @cspanhistory is our handle. and our numbers are 202-737-2001 eastern. and mountain and pacific, 202-737-2002. 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? is it by the environment? what's the average depth 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 both of 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. i have two questions. i'd like comments. when the jamestown settlement took place, it was a period of drought. i think 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 close to two indian

communities at jamestown and charles city/county, the chickahominy, over 1,000 people, and the settlement of 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 the tribes on the site demonstrating, and some in the original dress of the virginia indians. so they're 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 between the years of 1606 and 1612, the worst drought in almost one 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 ever any other 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. >> it devolved into agriculture, so it was 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. >> we'll go to san diego next for gene. go ahead -- howard, in san diego. i'm sorry. >> caller: yes, hi. 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 i think people get cheated in the future by not being able to study skeletal remains. i do. i don't know about banning, but maybe making sure that some people get buried traditionally would be a good thing. >> with lots of rapiers, right? >> yes. with lots of rapiers. >> we were fortunate to have a tour with you and a tour group as you led our cameras through the settlement there, bill kelso and bly straube, 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.