Posted on 07/25/2018 12:37:39 PM PDT by ETL
Archaeologists digging in a 400-year-old church in Jamestown, Virginia, have found a headless body that might be that of Sir George Yeardley, one of the first politicians and slave owners in the American colonies.
Few people have heard of Yeardley, but he played a key role in America's history. The Jamestown governor oversaw the House of Burgesses, the first elective governing body in the English colonies.
Scientists still aren't sure if the headless body is Yeardley's, but shortly after uncovering the skeleton, they made another finding that could help answer that question. They discovered a handful of teeth, 10 in all, on Sunday (July 22) that fit into a skull previously unearthed in the church.
[In Photos: New Jamestown Settlers Identified]
If DNA from the teeth and skull matches that from Yeardley's living descendants, then scientists will be able to identify Yeardley's body. By analyzing the skull's contours and tooth plaque, researchers may also be able to re-create his face and determine what kinds of food he ate, The Washington Post reported.
"We have a lot of world-renowned experts working with us on this," Mary Anna Hartley, a senior archaeologist with Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, told The Washington Post. "And I wanted to make sure there was something for them to examine." ..."
Jamestown rediscovered
The church excavation is part of a project run by the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution, to learn more about Jamestown, the first successful permanent English settlement in the American colonies.
The community was founded in 1607 and originally called "James Cittie," according to Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
one of the first politicians and slave owners in the American colonies.
_______________
Certainly not the first slave owner in Americas.
Indians were often slave owners.
Head missing Democrat
Spine missing Republican
Why was the body and skull in two different places?..................
Looks like he ran afoul of Hillary..
Thanks ETL.
When does grave robbing become archeology?
It wasn’t found in a topless bar?
Headless Body found in Topless Grave.......................
The moment the descendents’ curiousity is greater than their apathy or grief.
TOTALLY unnecessary to have added that irrelevant piece of information.
Yeardley didnt come to Jamestown until 1610 (he left London in June 1609, but a hurricane blew his ship off course to Bermuda). He became Jamestown governor in 1616, at the age of 29. He was later knighted by King James I in Britain, and then he returned to Jamestown with instructions from the Virginia Company, which controlled the colony, to create a laudable form of government . . . [for] the people there inhabiting, according to historical documents, The Washington Post reported.
The plan worked. In June of 1619, a group of 30 men met at the church the archaeologists are now excavating.
That same year, America received its first group of enslaved Africans. The slaves, taken from Angola in west central Africa, were on a Spanish ship bound for Vera Cruz, Mexico, until two English privateer ships attacked and took up to 60 of the Africans to Point Comfort, in what is now Hampton, Virginia said David Givens, director of archaeology at Jamestown Rediscovery. Yeardley purchased eight of the people, Givens told Live Science.
With the 400th anniversary of both of these events approaching, archaeologists hope to learn more about Yeardley, starting with the identification of his body, the researchers said. Although the DNA work is yet to come, the skeleton does offer several clues: It comes from a robust man in his late 30s or early 40s, which would match Yeardley, who died at age 40, in 1627, the archaeologists told The Washington Post.
Moreover, the skeletons hands are at its sides not crossed over the pelvis indicating that this burial was an important one, likely laid out so that people could see the body before its final burial, Hartley said. And in the early 1900s, people found a tomb slab engraved with knightly symbolsin the church. Given that Yeardley was a knight, its possible this limestone slab belonged to him, Hartley said.
She also noted that the burial is located in front of the churchs altar, a pretty prime spot to be buried, Hartley said.
The soil and artifacts at the burial match the right time period, Givens added. The team also plans to radiocarbon date the bones and do isotopic testing (an isotope is a variation of an element that has a varying number of neutrons in its nucleus) on the remains so that they can tell whether the individual drank water from England as a youth, he said.
https://www.techawais.com/headless-body-might-be-one-of-americas-1st-politicians/
Yardley died in 1627. Slaves were quite rare in the Jamestown settlement at that time. Most servants were English and were bound to a master by an indenture. The terms of the indenture were usually for a period of seven years after which the servant was set free and given a parcel of land and farming implements. The indenture usually paid for the cost of their passage to Virginia.
Christians could not be made slaves, but Indians could be made slaves and the settlers tried to do that, but since they could easily escape, that practice did not last. The Portuguese began the slave trade buying Africans from Africans and selling them in Brazil and later in the Caribbean and America.
I read a different article that said during the excavation of a known grave many years ago, the excavators may have slightly over-dug into Yardley’s grave and found the skull but didn’t excavate further. The Yardley grave itself is right in front of the alter of the original church in the center of the aisle, so a very prominent placing, whoever the person may have been.
——Indians were often slave owners.——
Now you did it.....triggered a bunch of Howard Zinn sychophants...
...and you right....
It might have been a Venerated Relic................
There were BLACK slave owners as well...................
Jamestown ping.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.