island. and oyster shell is another commonly found material at jamestown. they ate these oysters and subsequently used them to produce lyme for mortar and plaster. let's go on into our processing laboratory, our dry processing laboratory. here, i am sorting artifacts from the john smith well. these few ceramic shards are from one of the upper layers of the well. john smith in 1608 ordered the colonists to dig a well and in 1610, it was filled in as the colonists left jamestown. they had hoped to go back to england but they were met by a longboat in the chesapeake bay and ordered to turn around. the longboat belonged to lord delaware and announced his arrival. all the colonists came back and reoccupied james for. these ceramics were made in the period from about 1619 until about 1625. they were made by james ward. his kiln site was found here in the 1950's on the national park service property. these are some of his products. i am trying to do minimum object count. i count all the fragments by isolating rooms and bases that belong together. i can tell from l

>> this program is one of a multipart look at archaeology on jamestown island, virginia. check the american history tv website for schedule information. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> coming up next, a research services librarian at the society of cincinnati talks about the experiences of the french army during the american revolution. she draws evidence from two narratives. the american revolution institute of the society of then society of the cincinnati hopeful this event is about 25 minutes. >> hello everyone, welcome to the american revolution institute of the society of cincinnati. just one quick announcement before we begin, we are fortunate enough to become to buy c-span today. please show off all electronic devices. if you do have a question at the end of the presentation, wait until somebody comes to you with a microphone so that you can be michael asking your question. rachel, i am the research services librarian here at the society of the cincinnati. ab

well, if you may know, may 13 is where they land on jamestown island. that's a long time. 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 a hundred miles from the coast so that they would be protected from any raids from the spanish and that was the real fear although they had a treaty in 1604 where they were not supposed to be worried about them. but as i was saying, there is a falls of the river at richmond. can't go a hundred miles. so the fall back was to settle on some island that was strong by nature is what, is the quote. strong by nature means it's 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, with that ferry boat out there is in the channel. so the conventional wisdom was that they'd tie the ships there. that's where they'll have the fort. where the fort was built. then it washed away. that's the story i got. whe

jamestown in 1893. and so, we have got a long history of stewardship of the island, which the ladies who started the apva, which is now known as preservation virginia, they recognize this as america's birthplace. they wanted to preserve it. so, unfortunately, new england got all the glory through the years because jamestown had pretty much disappeared. all that stood on the island was a church tower. but the site itself, the original fort, was thought to be washed away into the james river. there had been searches for it on preservation virginia property, especially around the anniversary dates. 1957 they looked for the fort. they had archaeologists out there. nope, there is no sign of it on dry land. it is gone. if you would come out here is a tourist, a park ranger and pointed to the river and say, that is where it is. that is james fort. there was a lone cyprus tree that used to stand in the river that marks the territory. we thought with our anniversary, the 400th anniversary in 2007, we were thinking maybe it is time to look again. we know a little bit more about the kinds of artifacts that might re