ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, April 25, 1997                 TAG: 9704250065
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: B-6  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: JAMESTOWN
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS

JAMESTOWN REMAINS ARE THOSE OF BLACKS, NOT INDIANS BONES DATE TO BETWEEN 1650 AND 1700

Until now, scientists had no firm evidence of blacks at the first successful English settlement in North America.

Scientists examining four skeletons found at Colonial Jamestown say they are among the oldest known remains of blacks in what is now the United States and not those of American Indians, as originally thought.

Researchers at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History made the discovery while studying the remains for the National Park Service, which administers the Jamestown site. The study was done to comply with a new federal law that requires Indian remains be reburied.

The bones are thought to date from between 1650 and 1700. Until now, scientists knew of only one other black person's skeleton of comparable age. Those remains were found at Patuxent Point, Md.

Jamestown, the first successful English settlement in North America, was founded in 1607. Africans may have arrived as early as 1619, but until now, scientists knew of no remains to confirm their presence.

One of the skeletons, that of a man in his mid-20s, shows he died of a gunshot wound to the head. The bones are riddled with pits and deformations typical of end-stage syphilis, and researchers said he probably suffered great pain and severe dementia and might have died in a mercy killing.

One of the scientists, Douglas W. Owsley, said the findings in the Jamestown study demonstrate why the law requiring the reburial of some remains is flawed.

``I think this shows that when we use modern forensic techniques, we can go way beyond what we used to do,'' Owsley said, adding that if the skeletons had been reburied, the new findings about them would not have been made.

``There's just an amazing amount of information you can obtain from these remains,'' Owsley said. ``It's such a rich record of the human past, and we don't want to see that shut off.''

Under the law, American Indian remains must be reburied if a Native American group can show they are related to the deceased, and if scientific study has been completed.

LENGTH: Short :   50 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  ASSOCIATED PRESS. Forensic anthropologist Douglas W. 
          Owsley examines a skull of African ancestry found near Jamestown.