ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, September 13, 1996 TAG: 9609130154
SECTION: NATL/INATL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: JAMESTOWN
SOURCE: MARK ST. JOHN ERICKSON NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS
NOTE: Above
AND IT TOOK just two years to find what others had believed lost forever 389 years ago.
The lost James Fort has been found.
Just two years into a 10-year, $16 million Jamestown Rediscovery effort, a former schoolteacher and his team have made a discovery upending many 19th-century observations. The find also disproves the theories of earlier archaeologists, most of whom believed the fort had long ago fallen victim to erosion.
In addition to substantial evidence indicating the triangular footprint of the first fort, archaeologist Bill Kelso and company have recovered more than 150,000 artifacts dating from the earliest days of the 1607 palisade that protected the first permanent English settlement in America.
Speaking last in a program that included congratulatory remarks by a visibly thrilled Gov. George Allen, British cultural attache David Evans and other VIPs, Kelso, a former Williamsburg high school history teacher, stepped up to the microphone wearing shoes still muddy from the nearby excavation. He had to begin his remarks twice Thursday, pausing for nearly a minute before an exuberant audience of about 1,500 would let him talk.
Kelso described the historic find of the first English foothold in the New World by retooling a quotation from American humorist Mark Twain:
``Today, after finding here at Jamestown pieces of once-shining armor, the footprints of a fortification and literally looking into the face of a fallen 17th-century adventurer, I am tempted to say: Rumors of the death of James Fort by river erosion were greatly exaggerated. Indeed, the lost James Fort is found.''
More than half a dozen television crews showed up for the announcement, crowding the historic, tree-shaded grounds around Jamestown's 1639 church tower with noisy, white-painted, satellite trucks. National Public Radio and NBC's "Today Show" jockeyed for interviews with Kelso.
That high-tech presence, combined with the whirring cameras of newspaper photographers, offered a marked contrast to Kelso's closing words.
Describing the remains of an early settler unearthed during the week before, he asked the crowd to approach the grave site with respect. ``You may now look upon this burial,'' he said. ``But I request that you do so respecting the sacrifice he and the hundreds of others made here to establish this nation.''
``I commend the resourceful efforts of Dr. William Kelso and his team,'' Allen said.
``When conventional wisdom held that this fort was lost to the mighty James River, these inquiring men and women had a better idea - and they literally dug in.''
The discovery of the fort also endorses recent changes in the policy of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, which decided to sponsor the ambitious dig after years of maintaining the property as an undisturbed memorial to the first English settlers.
``In 1990, we were literally doing nothing more than mowing the grass here,'' said APVA Director Peter Dun Grover. ``Now, we've got Jamestown fort. It's our dream come true.''
Following the news conference, Allen and Kelso inspected the excavation and the nearby Audrey Noel Hume Center for Archaeological Research for more than an hour, with the former history major peppering the archaeologist with questions.
The tour began with an aerial view from atop a 30-foot mobile lift that overlooked the riverside dig. It also included visits to the grave site and the archaeological lab.
``This is astonishing. This is amazing,'' the governor said as curator Bly Straube pulled out a pair of worn teeth lost by a 40-year-old settler and found nearly 400 years later.
``It's good to realize how tough things were here. It wasn't a glamorous time, but one of humble beginnings and opportunities.''
Allen later used the example of Jamestown to promote Virginia tourism, noting that travelers spent nearly $10 billion in the state last year.
He also promised to consider additional state funding for the dig as part of a public/private partnership with the APVA and other donors.
``No one else can replicate this. No one else in the world has what we have here,'' he said, spreading his arms beneath a memorial cross honoring victims of early Jamestown's so-called ``starving time.''
``The 400th anniversary of Jamestown has to be celebrated and promoted on a grand scale. We want to attract and make it known all over the world.''
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. Smithsonian Institution forensic anthropologistby CNBDouglas Owsley examines the remains of a 17th century settler at the
fort site. 2. The view from a lift shows the circular southeast
bastion of the original James Fort. color. 3. Archaeologist Bill
Kelso has directed the dig at a site once maintained as an
undisturbed memorial. Graphic: Map by staff. color.