The Graveyard Diggers of Jamestown VA
Here at Graveyard Explorers we do a lot of detective work finding old cemeteries and graves. However, we don’t actually dig. The archeologist from Jamestown Recovery team have the awesome job of digging! If you haven’t visited Jamestown VA you should. Jamestown is the site of the first English settlement here in the US. It’s part of the Historic triangle of Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown Surrender Site and Jamestown. A must visit!
There’s an ongoing dig happening at Jamestown. Rarely ever have I visited when you don’t see the tents with the archeologist hard at work. They’ve been restoring the old original settlement for years. The James River and time had hidden one of our countries most historic sites.
A few years ago the Jamestown Recovery team made one of it’s most exciting finds.
From left, curator Douglas Owsley; Kari Bruwelheide, museum specialist at the National Museum of Natural History; and Ashley H. McKeown, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Montana, work at the excavation site. (Donald E. Hurlbert/Smithsonian Institution) 
Excavations of four burial sites are seen at the 1608 Jamestown Church site in James Fort. Preservation Virginia performed excavations between Nov. 18 and Nov. 21, 2013. (Donald E. Hurlbert/Smithsonian Institution)
The team found a tiny, hexagonal box, etched with the letter “M,” it also contained seven bone fragments and a small lead vial, and it probably was an object of veneration, cherished as disaster closed in on the colony. They settlers were starving to death at an alarming rate. Not to mention death by disease. But, the box itself was in a grave, the grave that would be know as “Grave C”. There were 3 additional graves found.
Grave “A” contained the skeleton of the Rev. Robert Hunt, who was about 39 and was the first Anglican minister in the country.
Grave “B” held the skeleton of Sir Ferdinando Wainman, who was about 34, “an honest and valiant gentleman,” wrote a friend.
Grave “C” held Capt. Gabriel Archer who was buried here about 1609. He was a lawyer and scribe, and his hands had been wounded in a skirmish with Indians.
Grave “D” bore the remains of Capt. William West, who was about 24 and had been killed fighting Indians in 1610 near where Richmond is today.
The head archaeologist said that for now the bones will be kept in a vault at the Jamestown complex, where they can be available for future study.
For now those of us at Graveyard Explorers will be content to do our sleuthing above ground. But we will dream of actually working with an archeological team that bring history back to life.