Posted on 05/28/2006 6:25:38 PM PDT by blam
Volunteers to dig into Croatan Indian village site again
By CATHERINE KOZAK, The Virginian-Pilot
© May 28, 2006
The last time the long-dormant Croatan site was investigated, a team of archaeologists unearthed a 16th-century gold ring that may be the most significant archaeological find of early American history.
In June, the team, with many of the same members who were there in 1998 when the English nobleman's ring was found, will be back to revive exploration of the ancient capital of the Croatan Indians in Buxton.
Organized by The Lost Colony Center for Science and Research , the team of volunteers will work from June 23 through July 9.
"The people I've spoken to are very interested, because they want to get back into the hunt," said Buxton resident Barbara Midgette, a participant in several digs, including the original excavations. "This is an outgrowth of that, but it is an entirely new enterprise. The interest in it continued because it was known that there was more stuff there."
Midgette said about nine original members will be part of the 16-member Croatan group.
"It's so much better organized now," she said. "The Lost Colony Center for Science and Research has done its homework."
In addition to the ring, a hearth, a gunlock, numerous coins, pottery pieces, shell jewelry and thousands of other artifacts were unearthed. The new team will be looking in a different part of the same Indian village site.
The 1587 colony of 117 men, women and children who came from England to Roanoke Island disappeared without a trace sometime after August of that year and came to be known as the "lost colony." It remains one of history's most baffling mysteries.
On Saturdays and Sundays during the dig, the site will open by appointment for "public archaeology," said Fred Willard, the center's director. Letting people participate in part of the dig is a way to get them excited about supporting the ongoing research.
"Every time we get somebody dirty," Willard said, "they write big checks."
Willard and Midgette had discovered shell midden and thousands of pieces of pottery at the Buxton site after Hurricane Emily in 1993 exposed the long-hidden Indian debris.
After veteran archaeologist David Phelps, since retired from East Carolina University, was called in to investigate, Willard participated in several digs under Phelps' direction.
Health problems have forced Phelps to bow out of this dig, Willard said, although he has agreed to act as an adviser.
Pay dirt of a different kind has also been hit: a 14,572-square-foot brick building outside Williamston - a former school - was donated this month to the research center. Located about 15 minutes from Washington and Plymouth, the building sits on 18 acres and has eight classrooms and a large auditorium.
"We're going to run an archaeology school," Willard said. "It's going to make an excellent resource for the whole community."
The building is expected to be renamed the Martin County Science and Cultural Center. It will be dedicated to George Ray, who helped secure the funds. The donor wished to remain anonymous, Willard said.
Since the dirt got under his nails in 1993, Willard became fascinated with the Lost Colony and archaeology and decided to pursue an undergraduate degree at ECU in anthropology and history - a goal he is close to reaching.
As a student, he relentlessly traced records, including numerous deeds, that indicated that descendants of the Lost Colonists - with Native American features and
English names - live around Chocowinity and Gum Neck.
It's that research that really got John Gray Blount excited about the Lost Colony.
Blount, a 71-year-old retired physician in Washington, N.C., is a fifth-generation descendant of the innovative pre-Colonial shipping businessman and inventor, wealthy landowner and founder of what North Carolinians call "Little Washington" - who was also named John Gray Blount .
Blount's great-great-grandfather - whose brother, incidentally, signed the Constitution - also had purchased a big portion of land in what was later Dare County that included Beechland, an area reputed to be where some of the 1587 colonists may have initially fled to on the mainland.
Blount, a member of the center's board, said that he can trace himself back to the Lost Colony to Dyonis Harvie, an assistant to Gov. John White. Of the 117 colonists, Blount said, the names of 48 of them can be found in his area.
"I'm not the least interested in the archaeology," Blount said. "I'm interested in the people.
"There's not any doubt in my mind that the Lost Colony was ever lost; they're right here. What's caught me is that all these people are in my hometown."
Reach Catherine Kozak at(252) 441-1628 or cate.kozak@pilotonline.com.
GGG Ping.
bump
""The people I've spoken to are very interested, because they want to get back into the hunt," said Buxton resident Barbara Midgette"
Speaking of family names, she's got a fairly storied one herself, or her husband does. That name is quite well known down east.
I've spent a little time in Bayview, just outside Bath, and not very far from Little Washington. There are numerous people in the Bath area who can honestly claim Blackbeard (Edward Teach) as an ancestor. A lot of interesting history in that area of NC.
Have you spent time around Salter Path? Interesting indeed!
I've been through the area many times, but as far as NC beaches go, my family was always more oriented to Oak Island, further down and closer to Southport.
The research in this article is interesting, to say the least. There are other, old populations in NC, in the western mountains, that claim Lost Colony descent. That would be the Melungeons. The Lumbee Indian tribe, on the coastal plain, has made the same claim. If recollection serves me right, there are some English surnames common among the Lumbee, that were among the Roanoke Island colonists.
Locklear is one of the Lumbee names with Enlgish decent. It is said that Heather Locklear is of Lumbee descent.
I play golf with a woman whose husband's name was Locklear. He told her he was some sort of Indian. Thanks for sharing, I'll tell her what kind he was.
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I'm surprised with all the DNA testing that's out there now, that they don't test some of those descendants. Maybe they have?
ping
Interesting..... First I'd heard of lost colony digs at Buxton.
DNA testing would be quite an undertaking. I don't know of any confirmed gravesites of colonists, so I'd think you'd have to track down their descendants in England, in addition to tracking down likely populations in NC. And, it could get more complicated than even that, since several of the native tribal "kings" in the area first came there via the whaling trade, and were originally from Nantucket. Ocracoke Inlet was the southernmost port, as I understand it. It's possible that whole tribes came down. The population was not static. And then you have the persistent tales from the 1600s of blue eyed "indians" in the mountains, who could understand at least some English. It's quite the tangle, and is likely to remain something of a mystery.
Excellent but 17 days is not much time.
There are some indications in records relating to the early founding of Jamestown that there were English looking or actually genuine English people living among a tribe called the Cheasapeaks, who lived outside Powhatan's dominions and that Powhatan had this tribe massacred along with the English among them as he feared the latter would unite with the Jamestown settlers and threaten him.
As the original target of the Roanoke settlers was intended to be Cheasapeak Bay, this is not beyong the realm of possibility.
Its also possible that the Roanoke settlers scattered, or were forcibly scattered, after the relief convoy from England never arrived.
At any rate, it would be nice to know that Viginia Dare did survive and produce offspring. If she did, I hope her life was a long and happy one.
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