Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network

DOCUMENT Citation Only Leah A. Stricker. Lauren R. Stephens.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Jamestown collection contains proportionally few Portuguese-made ceramics. However, their presence in seventeenth century Virginia highlights the political, economic, and social dynamics between an established world power and a developing one. Global trade networks, particularly the trading...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Christopher Stevenson. Madeleine Gunter-Bassett. Laure Dussubieux.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. When English colonists settled at Jamestowne in 1607, Virginia Indians of the lower Chesapeake Bay considered copper objects to be valuable trade goods. The leaders of the Powhatan Chiefdom initially saw the English settlers at Jamestowne as a valuable source of trade copper. Scholars have...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Cathrine M Davis.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Archaeological deposits from Early James Fort have yielded an impressive collection of over three hundred lead seals of varied origin. These occasionally enigmatic artifacts provide an exceptional opportunity to expand our understanding of textile use at the site, filling an important lacuna in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sierra S. Roark.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Plants played an integral role in the colonization of North America. When colonists and investors realized that gold and other precious metals would not be viable for export, they turned their attention to other natural resources. It was in plants that the colonists found the answers to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Chris Wilkins.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. A flintlock pistol was excavated from an early well at Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America. The pistol was intact and consisted of waterlogged wood, iron lock plates and machinery, and a copper alloy barrel and trigger. Initial investigations revealed the firearm...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Emma K Derry.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Jamestown Rediscovery collection contains 150 lapidary beads, including crystal quartz, chalcedony, carnelian, agate, amethyst, amber, and jet. Historically produced in regions where raw materials, craftsmen, and infrastructure came together, lapidary beads were transported across vast...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Lavin. Jamie May.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Jamestown Rediscovery recently expanded “Gentleman Soldiers,” an original installation in the Voorhees Archaearium archaeology museum. Since the museum’s opening in 2006, the team has recovered scores of personal arms, armor, and accoutrements that belonged to Jamestown’s upper class. These...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dennis B. Blanton. Elliot H Blair.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Since the beginning, excavations of the Jamestown Rediscovery Project have yielded large numbers of glass beads that traditionally are anticipated in early sixteenth century contexts, and very often with Spanish affiliations. New elemental and qualitative analyses bring understanding to this...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William T. T. Taylor. Fernando Villanea.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The introduction of domestic horses into North America had tremendous social and ecological consequences – these animals underpinned the colonial projects of European powers, while also giving rise to powerful Indigenous horse cultures. Though much attention has been paid to the spread of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Janene W. Johnston. Leah A. Stricker.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Jamestown, England’s first successful settlement in North America, was established in 1607 by the Virginia Company of London as an economic venture. Though the colony struggled to survive, let alone profit for the first several years, the site transformed from a precarious outpost into a vital...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Elliot H Blair. Dennis B Blanton.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Simple, drawn, turquoise blue beads (Kidd and Kidd IIa40), often referred to by a number of different regional names (e.g., Ichtucknee Plain, Early Blue), are one of the most common varieties recovered on colonial sites in North America. Beads of this variety dominate the 17th century James...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Caldwell Steele. Richard R Hark.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The Jamestowne jet crosses, currently interpreted as Spanish Catholic crucifixes, seemingly represent evidence that the early English settlers embraced a hybrid Protestant faith. However, these crosses stylistically resemble British Whitby jet witch charms, a group of artefacts that oral...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sara J. Rivers Cofield.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Perhaps following the example of the Spanish who imported horses in the 16th century, the Virginia Company included horses as essential to pack for their colonization venture. However, the primary benefit of carrying horses across the Atlantic before 1609 turned out to be the meat they offered...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Merry Outlaw.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Founded by the English Company in 1607, James Fort was Virginia's first and, for over a decade, England's primary settlement in the New World. The fort was situated in an unfamiliar wilderness and separated from the homeland by an ocean. However, ceramics from all over the world supplied the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Buck Woodard. Elizabeth Bollwerk.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The preservation of textiles and basketry is exceedingly rare in the archaeological record of the Indigenous Chesapeake. However, Historic Jamestowne’s collection offers an unusual window into Native textiles of the region, with multiple examples of weaving technologies and preserved forms....

DOCUMENT Citation Only Marcus M. Key. Jr..

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The goal of this project was to determine the source of Jamestown’s Knight’s tombstone. From 1627, it is the oldest such tombstone in the Chesapeake Bay, USA region. We chose a geoarchaeological approach using the fossils contained in the stone to determine its source. We sampled two archived...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Dan W Gamble.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Many unique and one of a kind artifacts have been recovered over 20 years of excavation at the site of James Fort. Each artifact tells a story about the people and the lives that were led at the site. One artifact that stands out both for its function and the questions it raises is book...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan T Andrews. Emma K Derry.

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Opening the Vault: What Collections Can Say About Jamestown’s Global Trade Network", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Previous faunal analysis at Jamestown focused on the first years of settlement, the Starving Time, and the post 1620s. A gap existed during the period immediately following the Starving Time when martial law, conflicts with Virginia Indians, and the reintroduction of livestock affected the...