Church Approves Jamestown DNA Removal

The Church of England on Wednesday gave permission for archeologists to dig under a church floor and remove DNA from 400-year-old skeletal remains to determine if the Jamestown settlement's founder was buried just outside the 17th century fort.

The Church of England said archaeologists can dig under the floor of a church in Suffolk, England, to reach the skeleton of Elizabeth Tilney.

She was the sister of Bartholomew Gosnold, a leader of the English expedition that founded Jamestown in 1607.

To tell if a skeleton recovered from the site of the original Jamestown fort is Gosnold's, scientists need DNA from a maternal relative.

This is the first time the church has agreed to let DNA be taken from a grave for a scientific project, said a statement from the Diocese of St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich.

The image that one should have of the despair there...is a small settlement...left to its own resources to survive...with few real farmers amongst the group. They were all religious in nature and closely tied (I won't use the word cult, but they acted and were led in such a way). There are numerous examples of how London religious leadership would give written orders to avoid associating with Indian tribes...even when starving. In the case of Jamestown, their poor farming methods led to limited foodstuffs for that winter. Bad relations with the Indian tribes didn't help...and even when there was a tribe who was friendly...the deacons of the organization forbid close contact. They read from the Bible each day and kept trying to hold out for a miracle by late winter...and it never came.

If you look at the Pilgrims...they also had written orders to avoid Indian contact, and broke that order to some degree, as demonstrated in the first Thanksgiving. The Dutch colony just up the road from the Pilgrims also offered assistance on occasion...and weren't exactly welcomed either because they were "in sin".

I don't want to paint all of these English groups as "naive" but the Puritan ethic wasn't exactly made for a new land and dangerous neighbors (Indians) or harsh winters. Farming is a craft that you need to know a bit about...as demonstrated in the Dutch colony in Manhattan. They actually brought real farmers in and the colony matured quickly. This is simply not the case in Jamestown or other Puritan run operations. It took years for them to mature and realize survival methods and good farming techniques.

Maybe the locals treated them the way a lot of Freepers want to treat other illegal immigrants?

Tell me, Mr. Open borders, what happened to the locals when they allowed wide open immigration? Does the word "Reservation" mean anything to you?

Some Freepers are capable of learning from past mistakes, others will plod along blindly until they fall into the tar pit and extinction.

Please enlighten me, but since when was Jamestown a "Puritan run" operation? Yes the English in 1607 were firmly Protestant, but wasn't Puritanism a subgroup in the C of E which included neither the Pilgrims (dissenters of the C of E), nor the Jamestown settlers?

I thought it wasn't until the 1630s & 40s when vast numbers of Puritans came to New England (not Virginia).

I think its fair to say the English were not very wise in their first settlements, but one can't lay it on the Puritans.

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