Jamestown’s 1617 Church: Finding the Founder and Foundations of Representative Government

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Excavating the Foundations of Representative Government: A Case Study in Interdisciplinary Historical Archaeology." , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Excavations conducted by pioneering women archaeologists in the 1890s uncovered evidence of the 1617 Church, where the first meeting of the General Assembly occurred in July 1619. However, those excavations did not determine the church’s complete limits. Recently, archaeologists returned to the church site to reexamine the building, find the missing foundation, and locate the spot where the Assembly met. This work included the excavation of several burials, in part to inform our understanding of the 1617 Church, and as mitigation for the construction of a new interpretive exhibit. This paper summarizes the results of the archaeological investigation of the 1617 Church and the forensic analysis of the burials investigated in the church chancel.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Excavating the Foundations of Representative Government: A Case Study in Interdisciplinary Historical Archaeology.   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

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PaperId(s): 469