W&M archaeologists may have found Werowocomoco
People have been calling the woods of eastern Virginia home for thousands of years. This find, if it proves to be what it is thought to be, was the largest settlement in the area and was a major influence on the life of these early inhabitants.
Discovery of ditches called 'unusual'
Two ancient ditches might define the village where Powhatan imprisoned Capt. John Smith.
BY MARK ST. JOHN ERICKSON
247-4783
August 5 2004
Archaeologists probing for the remains of Chief Powhatan's legendary home village - known as Werowocomoco - have unearthed evidence of a mysterious landscape feature more than 200 feet long and nearly 600 years old.
Tracking the paths of two ancient ditches spaced roughly 6 feet apart, a College of William and Mary summer field school followed them north along the York River for more than 100 feet. Then the impressions began curving in tandem to the east, taking the five-week-long dig an additional 100 feet before the season ended.
Much more work will be required before the archaeologists can determine whether their giant find corresponds to an immense, D-shaped feature depicted in a circa 1608 Spanish map of Powhatan's capital. But its sheer size and uniqueness, coupled with the possibility that it might have been a familiar part of the landscape at the time of Pocahontas and Capt. John Smith, has sparked considerable excitement among scientists looking for the long-lost Indian settlement.
"We're still sorting it out and developing hypotheses - and we still have much more excavating to do," William and Mary archaeologist Martin Gallivan said during a tour Wednesday afternoon conducted for U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Gloucester.
"But we've determined that these ditches extend much further than we expected them to - and it's likely that they continue beyond where the excavation stopped. So we think that this is something different, something really unusual."
Partly discovered in 2003, the parallel ditches measure roughly 4 feet wide and 3 feet deep, making them far more robust than the usual examples found at American Indian sites. Despite that girth, Gallivan and his colleagues were greatly surprised earlier this summer when the original 25-foot-long section turned out to be the beginning of something much larger.
"I thought they might go on for 100 feet or so," Gallivan said. "But they extended well over 200 feet in length by the time we were done."
Such extraordinary size fits in well with Colonial descriptions of Werowocomoco, which was the capital of Powhatan's expansive Chesapeake Bay chiefdom.
In his books about Virginia, Smith called the village the largest and most powerful of the American Indian settlements - and he gave particular attention to his account of being captured and marched through the village to the doorstep of Powhatan's house. He also left an estimate of the distance from the waterfront that has fueled speculation about the newly uncovered landscape feature.
"Smith said that Powhatan's house was '30 score' from the waterfront," said archaeologist E. Randolph Turner III, director of the Portsmouth regional office of the state Department of Historic Resources.
"The problem is that he didn't say 30 score what. But if you assume he's talking about paces, that 30 score takes you right up from the waterfront to these ditches."
Other archaeological evidence links the site to Werowocomoco, too, including an unusually dense concentration of American Indian artifacts and residential features found this past summer along the river.
A third part of this year's excavation turned up additional evidence of American Indian dwellings between the ditches and the waterfront.
Added up over the past three years of digging, the number of such deposits ranges over about 30 acres. And though radiocarbon dating estimates that the ditches were originally dug in the early 1400s, other evidence traces the village back as many as 15,000 years.
"This is a very, very large Indian settlement. Normally, you'd just have a couple of acres or so - and they'd all be down on the water," Turner said.
"So just from the size of what we've found, something very unusual seems to be happening on this site."
Among contemporary Virginia Indians, many people seem equally impressed by the excavation's findings, including Chief Stephen R. Adkins of the Chickahominy.
After visiting the farm at the invitation of owners Robert and Lynn Ripley, who discovered the first American Indian artifacts here more than seven years ago, he has few doubts about Powhatan's presence and the discovery of his long-lost capital.
"When I step on this site, I feel different," Adkins said Wednesday. "The spirituality is here - and it touches me."
Copyright © 2004, Daily Press
Discovery of ditches called 'unusual'
Two ancient ditches might define the village where Powhatan imprisoned Capt. John Smith.
BY MARK ST. JOHN ERICKSON
247-4783
August 5 2004
Archaeologists probing for the remains of Chief Powhatan's legendary home village - known as Werowocomoco - have unearthed evidence of a mysterious landscape feature more than 200 feet long and nearly 600 years old.
Tracking the paths of two ancient ditches spaced roughly 6 feet apart, a College of William and Mary summer field school followed them north along the York River for more than 100 feet. Then the impressions began curving in tandem to the east, taking the five-week-long dig an additional 100 feet before the season ended.
Much more work will be required before the archaeologists can determine whether their giant find corresponds to an immense, D-shaped feature depicted in a circa 1608 Spanish map of Powhatan's capital. But its sheer size and uniqueness, coupled with the possibility that it might have been a familiar part of the landscape at the time of Pocahontas and Capt. John Smith, has sparked considerable excitement among scientists looking for the long-lost Indian settlement.
"We're still sorting it out and developing hypotheses - and we still have much more excavating to do," William and Mary archaeologist Martin Gallivan said during a tour Wednesday afternoon conducted for U.S. Rep. Jo Ann Davis, R-Gloucester.
"But we've determined that these ditches extend much further than we expected them to - and it's likely that they continue beyond where the excavation stopped. So we think that this is something different, something really unusual."
Partly discovered in 2003, the parallel ditches measure roughly 4 feet wide and 3 feet deep, making them far more robust than the usual examples found at American Indian sites. Despite that girth, Gallivan and his colleagues were greatly surprised earlier this summer when the original 25-foot-long section turned out to be the beginning of something much larger.
"I thought they might go on for 100 feet or so," Gallivan said. "But they extended well over 200 feet in length by the time we were done."
Such extraordinary size fits in well with Colonial descriptions of Werowocomoco, which was the capital of Powhatan's expansive Chesapeake Bay chiefdom.
In his books about Virginia, Smith called the village the largest and most powerful of the American Indian settlements - and he gave particular attention to his account of being captured and marched through the village to the doorstep of Powhatan's house. He also left an estimate of the distance from the waterfront that has fueled speculation about the newly uncovered landscape feature.
"Smith said that Powhatan's house was '30 score' from the waterfront," said archaeologist E. Randolph Turner III, director of the Portsmouth regional office of the state Department of Historic Resources.
"The problem is that he didn't say 30 score what. But if you assume he's talking about paces, that 30 score takes you right up from the waterfront to these ditches."
Other archaeological evidence links the site to Werowocomoco, too, including an unusually dense concentration of American Indian artifacts and residential features found this past summer along the river.
A third part of this year's excavation turned up additional evidence of American Indian dwellings between the ditches and the waterfront.
Added up over the past three years of digging, the number of such deposits ranges over about 30 acres. And though radiocarbon dating estimates that the ditches were originally dug in the early 1400s, other evidence traces the village back as many as 15,000 years.
"This is a very, very large Indian settlement. Normally, you'd just have a couple of acres or so - and they'd all be down on the water," Turner said.
"So just from the size of what we've found, something very unusual seems to be happening on this site."
Among contemporary Virginia Indians, many people seem equally impressed by the excavation's findings, including Chief Stephen R. Adkins of the Chickahominy.
After visiting the farm at the invitation of owners Robert and Lynn Ripley, who discovered the first American Indian artifacts here more than seven years ago, he has few doubts about Powhatan's presence and the discovery of his long-lost capital.
"When I step on this site, I feel different," Adkins said Wednesday. "The spirituality is here - and it touches me."
Copyright © 2004, Daily Press
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