
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 23, 1995                   TAG: 9502230096
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-4   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: JAMESTOWN                                 LENGTH: Medium

UNEARTHED WALL MAY BE FIRST VA. FORT'S

The site of the first fort built by English settlers who landed at Jamestown in 1607 may have been found at last, archaeologists believe.

``We're just feeling more and more confident,'' said William Kelso, director of archaeology for the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.

Archaeologists found the clear imprint of a palisade, a log wall used in military fortifications, at an excavation site that also has produced thousands of artifacts dating from the early 1600s.

Kelso told the Richmond Times-Dispatch on Tuesday that the palisade certainly was built in the Jamestown settlement's earliest days and may well be a wall of the triangular fortification built to protect the settlers. Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in North America.

``This is among the foremost archaeological discoveries in recent times in America,'' Kelso said. ``This is part of John Smith's Jamestown. There's no doubt that's true.''

The palisade evidence was uncovered as digging took place last summer and into the fall. But Kelso said examination and analysis of the artifacts and the palisade line, along with research into historical documents, has bolstered confidence that researchers have found the site of the fort wall.

After formal reports about last year's excavations are completed within the next few weeks, the research team will begin planning to excavate enough of the palisade line to determine whether it leads to one of the rounded bastions that formed the three corners of the original fort, Kelso said.

The discovery is important because scholars believed for more than 100 years that all evidence of the fort had long since washed into the James River.

Kelso said the research team chose the excavation site, in the 150 feet between the surviving tower of a 1655 church and the river, partly because it hoped that the church was built on the site of the original church within the fort.

He said the researchers estimate the portion of palisade line they've found represents only 1 percent of the fort wall, which is believed to have been 120 yards long between bastions on the river side and 100 yards long on its two inland sections.

Bly Straube, the project curator, said the small site excavated so far also has provided a trove of 16th and 17th century artifacts, including a complete military helmet dating from before 1610 and Elizabethan coins.

Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.

by CNB