An Update from Virginia’s James Fort

JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA—The Williamsburg Yorktown Daily reports that archaeologists from the Jamestown Rediscovery Project are excavating the well found within the cellar that had been built by the colonists just outside the perimeter of the original James Fort structure. The team expected the well to have been filled with trash, like other old, brackish wells at James Fort. This well, however, was filled with clay. Senior staff archaeologist Mary Anna Richardson thinks that when the colonists expanded the cellar after the winter of 1609-1610, they put the clay they dug up into the well. Because the well had been located inside and down a flight of stairs, it may have been an inconvenient trash pit. “An absence of artifacts is actually a key part of the story,” added senior staff archaeologist Danny Schmidt. The bottom layer of the well may hold artifacts from the time when the well was in use.