ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, September 30, 1996 TAG: 9609300083
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: JAMESTOWN
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE SKELETON FOUND in mid-September by archaeologists may have belonged to a mutinous settler, according to database searches.
A Salt Lake City genealogist working with a computerized database said one name popped up when he tried to identify the early English settler found buried inside the original Jamestown fort.
Bill Thorndill, who has a massive inventory of documents on the first years of the Virginia settlement, conducted his scan based on evidence of a potentially fatal gunshot wound to the colonist's right leg.
A series of search attempts using the words ``gun,'' ``leg,'' ``shot'' and ``wound'' turned up a hit on Capt. George Kendall, a mutinous settler who was executed in late 1607.
``I'm not saying that's who the skeleton is,'' Thorndill said in an interview with the Daily Press of Newport News. ``But that was the only guy that came up in my search.''
Jamestown Rediscovery director Bill Kelso, whose team recovered the body from its nearly 400-year-old grave last week, said Thorndill's results are another piece of the puzzle. But he said he couldn't accept the link to Kendall until the theory had been tested beyond a reasonable doubt.
``We still haven't had time to go over all the original sources that carefully yet,'' he said. ``We've been too busy trying to protect the remains.''
The archaeologists announced the discovery of the skeleton Sept. 12, the same day they revealed they had found the original fort of the 1607 settlement along the James River.
Lying on a worktable behind a glass partition, the bones will be on public view for several weeks at the Audrey Noel Hume Center for Archaeological Research while scholars clean and examine the remains.
Plans call for a variety of tests designed to determine the colonist's age, dietary habits and medical history. Smithsonian Institution forensic anthropologist Doug Owsley will combine those findings with data he has gathered from other early Colonial-era tissue samples.
The survey could give archaeologists a variety of telltale biological markers useful in dating and even identifying other remains.
``He's an interesting character all by himself, but where he's most valuable to me is as part of series of bodies from the period,'' Owsley said. ``He'll be very important because he will be one of the earliest.''
Kelso also hopes to restore the skeleton's collapsed skull, a feature that may enable the archaeologists to reconstruct the colonist's facial features. The bones themselves will be used to make a mold and cast a full-size reproduction of the remains.
Following the studies, the body will be reburied, possibly in the same site where it was found. Whether the new grave will be marked with Kendall's name - or any name at all - remains a puzzling question.
Even the most thorough search of the records from the period may not yield a convincing answer, said historian Nancy Egloff of nearby Jamestown Settlement historical park.
Though the earliest days of the colony produced some detailed accounts of the settlers' activities, these week-by-week and month-by-month reports fizzle out pretty quickly.
``There are some big gaps in the records after that,'' Egloff said, ``with a couple of years in which there is no solid reporting at all.''
Even the documents that do exist tend to be frustratingly incomplete, as scholars have found in examining the three or four accounts that describe Kendall's conviction for mutiny and his execution.
The colony's embattled leaders may have made other omissions, Egloff said, as they struggled to impose order on the often rebellious group of settlers.
``Records can be skewed in so many ways depending on their purpose,'' she said. ``How many times are you going to mention who was killed or shot when you're trying to encourage other colonists to come to the New World?''
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