25,000 digital images. now from 2011, a three-part american artifacts recorded shortly after jamestown rediscovery located that four graves. these programs include a tour of the archaeology trenches and a visit to the lap where the artifacts are studied. the original 1607 english settlement at jamestown, virginia, had long been considered lost under the james river until 1994 when bill kelso found evidence of the site. since then the project has on morenurse -- unearthed than one million artifacts, including many complete relatives of the settlers. american history tv visited jamestown for an archaeology tour with mr. kelso. bill: what i'm going to do is to give you a little lecturette to different places about the

property and talk about, a little bit about the history of jamestown, a little bit about geography, and a little bit about the history of the project. and then we will go to each of the sites that are open right now, the trenches, you were promised this is in the trenches, so we are going to get into the trench -- at least one of them -- and you are on one of the few islands you can be on along the james river. that is one of the reasons why it was chosen as the first colony. we are about 35 miles from hampton roads or the opening to the ocean. the river goes forever into the mountains of virginia, gets different names, but at richmond, there are waterfalls. it is not navigable from here to there. that was important. the colonists found that out. they did not know that in the beginning. that gives the setting.

jamestown, the whole idea was put together by a man you have probably never heard of, captain bartholomew gosnold. he had, was privateer, had captured some spanish ships in the 16th century, and gave all these ridges the left riches -- iches to all of these ru the queen. so we had the idea of establishing a colony, after he knew something about the fact that one already tried at roanoke island off of north carolina, which became famously known as the lost colony and is still lost, by the way. no one has been able to find the people. that was in the 1580. this is 20 years later. he felt there should be a permanent colony. one attempt he made in 1602, you may have heard of if you're from

the new england area, he tried to put in a colony on what we think is now elizabeth isles. town named after him next to martha's vineyard. the indian trading did not work out the way he thought it would. he went back. nobody died, but he had the experience how to navigate to the new world. he went back. he had connections. that is the way it works. it still works that way. one of his relatives with a courtier in the court, so he could get the charter that sir walter raleigh had to colonize in the new world. he had the legal means to do it. he had another relative who was one of the richest merchants in england. so he had a way of finding an so hetion to virginia, put it together in a place

called otley hall near ipswich in england. he had a connection through another man who brought in captain john smith and they got together and decided they were going to do this colony. they formed the virginia company. a joint stock venture one of the , earliest if not one of the earliest modern corporations was put together. and in the late 1606, they decide to bring three ships, 105 colonists, all men. well, three boys. and left in late december of 1606. well, as you may know, may 13 is where they land on jamestown island. that is a long time, and that was a problem. they came in here with a food deficit right away because it took too long to get here. they were instructed to go 100 miles from the coast so they would be protected from any raids from the spanish.

and that was a real fear, although they had a treaty in 1604 where they were not to be worried about them, but as i was saying, they are the falls of the river at richmond. cannot go 100 miles. so the fallback was to settle on some island that was strong by nature. that is a quote. strong by nature means it is surrounded by water, so it could be protected. they also decided -- and this is important -- they said they chose the island, too, because the channel was so close to the shore they could tie the ships. now, the channel, that ferry boat is in the channel. the conventional wisdom was they tie the ships there. they would have a fort. that is where the fort was built. it washed away. that is the story i got in 1963. anyway, the 104 men had a rough summer.

rough is an understatement. more than half died in the first summer. and they began to realize what a difficult operation this is going to be and how underfunded they were, understaffed, underfunded. it sounds like most nonprofits. anyway, jamestown has never changed. so, but they got through that, then smith leaves, but when he leaves in 1609, there was another time known as the starting time. the name tells you what happens. there were probably only 60 people left alive out of 215 in 1610. so they pack up, they leave. so this would not be the first permanent english settlement had not at that very moment a new supply group come in and the resident governor, lord delaware, came in with over 100

troops and they jumpstarted the operation. from that point, the colony is going to make it. that is thumbnail history, the earliest years. the reason i'm sticking to the earliest years is because most of what we found archaeologically dates to that period and that seminal event has been a really important thing for our understanding of what we found beneath the ground. so, if you will follow me down here, i will show you where we started and why. a lot of people wonder where you start digging. i first came to jamestown, i was so excited because i read a footnote in one of my history books in northern ohio, where i'm from, that there was a jamestown. modern american history, the european offshoot of american history begins at plymouth. , that is the whole story.

we have the thanksgiving and everything. it is reinforced every year. that is where everything begins. there was a successful attempt to plant a colony in 1607, and that's jamestown but it failed. that is the impression you get when you read any standard history, and hopefully, that is changing. so when i came out i said i want , to walk the ground were john smith and pocahontas walked. i came out and there was a park ranger here and he said, you're going to get wet. the river, gone. you cannot do that. but i got looking around and i saw a cut through the soil in a bank not far from here, and it showed three different layers of soil. that is important. i will show you how we worked with that process. there was a pile of clay. you could tell it had been put in. under that was a dark layer of

rich dirt. the top layer said civil war. had some civil war artifacts. then under that it said colonial and it had pottery. then under that is indian and there were stone tools. i said, what is this black layer? that is pretty interesting. we were on at that time -- a piece of, not part of the national park. you are on private property. this is owned by preservation virginia, which is then known as the association for the preservation of virginia, and he said, well, we have never had a chance to look here. he gave me that look like maybe something is here. i said, what's that? i put that in the back of my mind. became an archaeologist. started working in georgia and virginia, the caribbean, but i always thought that no one had proved that that fort washed away.

on the horizon was the 400th anniversary of settlement. i thought wouldn't it be a great thing to do to actually find what is being commemorated in 1607, 2007? so i talked to the landowners for 10 years, actually and tried, here's a plan. let's do this. i said, i'm sure it's there. i wrote that out. we are going to find this. so they agreed in 1993. began digging right where you're standing. right here. now why here? well, my theory was because that church tower we are standing next to is a 17th century architectural feature, i thought, one of the documents said the church was in the midst of the fort. if i did between here and that

seawall, i will come up with a different color soil where it was clear it was a palisade of a triangular shaped fort would begin to appear. i started myself. right here. one shovel, one wheelbarrow. i couldn't hold back. i knew, i had a grant that would not kick in for a couple months. i started here. the first day i was digging under the grass and came up with a piece of pottery. i was roped in. this woman was here with her son watching this guy, pretty skeptical. she finally said to me, what you doing? like, do people know you are out here digging in their sacred property? and i had that pottery. i looked at her. i was pretty manic at the time because i knew this party was old enough.

i said i'm finding james fort! , she backed away with her son. come on, bobby, let's not upset the nice man. she really said that. i hope she came back with him. that was 1994. what we had done, luckily enough, was to dig at this place which turned out to be a filled in cellar of a building that we have replicated above. that we found pieces of by finding where a post had been put in the ground and left a dark circle stain in the soil. there was a cellar full of an intact helmet armor. , they came out of this pit in the exhibit. before you go, please see that. the dates of coins. all this stuff was coming out. it was military and old enough -- wow. this is james fort. it took many years to connect all the dots to be able to tell where and how the fort laid out. were on there if we

west side, inside, or outside for a long time. but we went ahead in 1996, at some parts of this fort here. it turned out, almost 90% had escaped erosion. and then so many people came over here and so many died, their possessions were just scattered and buried in a cellar, ditches, wells. wherever there is a hole it got filled with some pretty amazing artifacts. right now the collection goes , over a million and a half objects have been found here over 18 years. the way it is done is you open up an area, usually on a 10 foot square, find a streak that goes through the palisade line. we follow these things, square at a time. and open up a big area to understand it all. we will see a big area at the

next stop. let's head to the trenches. if you all would just go up on the hill and i'll go down on the trenches. this is probably the largest trench we have ever opened up at one time. and what you are looking at is the fight of the 1608 church. if you are saying to yourself, what church? these orange flags mark the giant post holes that were dug down as much as six feet or maybe eight. 12 foot between each one of these posts. if you can begin to imagine a post coming out of these holes. another, and each one you can see there is a pattern

to where the orange flags are located. so, i knew from a description written by a man who is really the chronicler of the whole operation, in 1610 wrote the church is 24 feet wide and 60 feet long. so, then we began to find these enormous post holes and it began mathematically to add up. what we do, as i said, is we open an area that is taken down to the grade that has not been disturbed. and this is it right here. at that point, look for outlines of soil that has been dug into before. every place that someone dug beneath this clay is detectable. if you have one of these. and you scrape down really carefully.

it is hard to show because it is dry, but this is mixed soil right here. there's little yellow splotches, lighter stuff, darker stuff but , on the side it is very uniform. that has never been dug into before, but this has. these purple flags mark what do you think? grades. exactly right. there are four graves that line up in the extreme eastern end of this postal pattern. hole pattern. and that really is the telling evidence that says this is a church. so, the important people are buried in the chancery. we know also from records -- and there is a continual interplay of what we find in the ground with what is in the records and what is in the records back and forth. and we know from the time the church stood which was from 1608

to 1616 according to records, there were four people buried. four people that would have had status to be buried here that we know of. there is the original cleric, reverend hunt. could be here. he died very close to the time the church was put up in 1608. could be. i would assume that he would be this guy right here. there was a knight and two captains that died during that time. we have a plan to uncover the remains and see if we can identify these people beginning next spring. i think they should be marked. the whole church was, the location lost. although there, there was a onnish map this is based that had an x. i always thought x might mark the spot. it does. a little off-center.

in the midst of the fort but not exactly in the center. i had my ambition to walk where john smith and pocahontas walked. i got to pocahontas. you cannot see this post hole. you will when we come around. this makes a rectangular space. that would be the chancel. pocahontas marries john rolfe in this church in 1614. so i guarantee you i'm standing exactly, a little deeper than she was, but this is where pocahontas stood when she got married. had to. they stand in the center. you have been to weddings, you know. that is pretty amazing. that is kind of wow. you can do that with archaeology. now i'm going to get you to come down, and we are going to get into the trench down there and we will gather out into here. and we have danny schmidtz digging away with dan smith.

and you can tell them what you're doing there, dan. dan: so, what we're doing as we are digging into a well. this well happens to be in the southwest corner of the church. now, it looks like that is just a coincidence, but we wanted to make sure that it did not relate to the church. so thus we dig into it and see if we can find dateable artifacts. we know this church is here until 1617 and shifts to another location. right over there. what we have been finding our are artifacts later than that date. it looks like it is a coincidence. i think this will date to the mid-17th century. a 350 year old well. now, what we are doing, too, is we are widening the well. the well was a cask-lined well

about three feet in diameter. we are widening the hole so we can put a steel casing in to protect this as we go down. we have about six to eight more feet to go. even though this does not relate to james fort, we are still going to go ahead and investigate this because we're almost to the bottom. bill: wells are interesting to archaeologists because we will probably hit water. and the well went four feet below that. anything that has been continuously wet will survive, organics. we will probably find a barrel. any organic things, leather, wood, even metal is in better shape beneath the water because it keeps the oxygen away. a lot of oxygen away. we've also found seeds, plants in other wells. , they would be old enough. so, it is a treasure no matter what. we just can't resist. dan: it is amazing, still nonetheless, that all of this is

still here to be excavated. bill: it is. nothing substitutes for being here standing on this soil. do you agree? that is what keeps us going. o come to jamestown and experience this. this is 18 years of digging. we are not finished. these are big places inside the fort, we have not let that inside this one acre. so archaeology can go on a long time. and fortunately i've got some , young people here on the staff that will be available and interested, hopefully. what was pointed out that john smith was located, pretty interesting place. and that was just the ladies of the atva in 1907, they decided to put it there. he actually is right where the main entrance to the fort would have been. it is kind of eerie that there would be that decision to put that there, not knowing anything about the fort. all pretty much convinced the

fort was not even here. if you want to sort of, come under the rope and go around the edges where you can see down in. this is marianne and don, more staff archaeologists working this site. i mentioned the church was in the midst of the fort. most of the public buildings were in the midst of the forts. there was the storehouse. there was a guard, which we think is the sight of that. that is where the armor would be kept, where the soldiers that would go on duty would suit up, sort of the locker room. right next to it is a blacksmith shop site over by those posts, we found more than two dozen sword hilts. found just as one of our most interesting visitors showed up,

the queen of england in may of 2007. she came down, walked down the stairs right behind you. and looked at that site. we were finding all these arms and armor. i was supposed to take her around and make sure she had a reflective moment about the history of jamestown. so, i thought, well, i have got to come up with something. i was pretty nervous. so i said, we're looking at the swords. and marianne said, well, this is the first time this english equipment has seen the light of day in 400 years. thought what if she says, we , would like them back? still belongs to us. not really though. what we're are doing right now -- marianne and don, maybe you can tell us what you're up to. marianne: what you're looking at is the footprint for one of the post in ground structures you

were shown on the other part of the site. we're just taking down each of these trenches and post holes looking for any kind of diagnostic artifacts that would help us get a good firm date for this building and hopefully what it was used for. bill: this is a good example of when it is wet you can see the color changes. >> what items have you found in here? marianne: we just pulled out a petri dish from one of the post holes. it is the most complete artifact we have found. it is always nice to find something intact. that was found in this post hole here. it was just kind of dropped in. we are doing research on that to see exactly what it was used for. a lot of pieces of pottery. there is a piece of bone sticking out of this wall. here is a piece of lead from the floor.

so, i mean, there is stuff that was just trampled in. you're welcome to pass that around. >> perfectly round. >> it is heavy. bill: i will show you a couple of other exposed sites down here. in 1610, when delaware came in, he cleansed the town he filled , wells. incredible collections of artifacts and they built two row houses. we knew they were built by 1614, but we did not know where they were. outside the fort or whatever. they're right in here. we're marking them 20 inches above the original evidence. they were built with cobblestone foundations. these are buildings that were built to last and more like what was being built in england. half timber, they were said to be two stories. this one had six rooms because we found three fireplaces.

all of these crosses mark graves we found. this dates to 1607. is a 1610 building and is already built on top of burials. there was a record of who died in august, september of 1607. there is a whole rash of these gentlemen, soldiers. there was an older man and a younger man buried together in the same shaft. there is a record of an older and younger man dying in that -- 1607. so, i think we are going to be able to labels on all these burials. then there was a burial of a boy who died at age 14. we can tell that by the forensic development of the bone. and he had many health problems, one of which was an arrow in his leg. the arrow point is still there. he also had his entire jaw had gonessed and was almost and a broken collarbone. he is, those remains actually

are in an exhibit at this the -- at the smithsonian. have any of you heard of the "written in bone" exhibit? you ought to see that. it is about what forensic anthropologists can learn from skeletal material, from modern murder cases all away back to the boy. one other person i mentioned earlier we will talk again about over here. as we were looking for the west wall of the fort in 2003, we discovered a well. mathematically, it seems like the fort was bigger than we thought. so we started trenching in this area. interesting well the artifacts , that are in the museum, the front glass wall you see over there. and we also discovered a burial out here in a strange way, but we found that it was parallel,

laid parallel to what turned out to be the west wall. we dug down maybe two feet, and we found what looks like a spear, laying parallel to a row of nails. it was pretty clearly the coffin. we x-rayed it and saw that it was a decorative spear point that we were able to identify as a captain's staff. there would be ribbons on it. he's in front of the troops and marching. hmm. so here is a captain. now, i'd always wondered where captain bartholomew gosnold was buried, because he died on august 22. 1607. here is the captain. we brought the forensic anthropologist down from the smithsonian that has helped us many times to identify things. he arrives kind of blind scientifically. we did not tell him anything

about gosnold. he looked at the remains and said, this is a very well preserved skeleton. and i can tell you, i think he died about age 35, 37 years old. it is pretty clear. so, anyway, gosnold was 36 when he died. he is telling me it is possible to get dna from burials even 400 years old. it turns out it is mitochondrial dna. i thought we would just go swap a gosnold and find out. now if you want to know how that , turned out, there is a book that you can have for your very own. it's in here, the whole story. it's an interesting story. i think we have gosnold. he now is lying in state in washington. there is a complete physical reconstruction of him based on forensic sculptures, interpretations of bone development. with that, i am done with my

tour. and i would thank you very much for your attention. >> the original 1607 english settlement at jamestown virginia was lost to history until an archaeologist unearthed evidence of the fort in 1994. since then, the jamestown rediscovery project has catalogued more than one million artifacts from the area where john smith and pocahontas walked the ground. next, american history tv takes you inside the project's labs to see how history is revealed to them -- through artifacts. jamestown island is on the james river about 35 miles from the atlantic ocean.