Archeology presentations offered by First Colony Foundation at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site

Date: June 18, 2007
Contact: Outer Banks Group, [phone]

The public is invited to attend an evening of presentations about archeology and the Roanoke Voyages’ contributions to future colonization efforts. These presentations, conducted by the First Colony Foundation, will start at 6:30 p.m. on Friday, June 22, 2007 at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site’s Lindsay Warren Visitor Center. The event is free and open to the general public. The evening event is planned to last approximately 1-1/2 hours, with a brief intermission between two lectures given by First Colony Foundation members Philip Evans, Eric Klingelhofer, and Nicholas Lucketti

One of the presentations, In Search of the Lost Colony, will discuss how explorers and scholars have been searching for signs of Sir Walter Raleigh’s legendary "Lost Colony" on Roanoke Island. The presentation will review previous archeological work accomplished at the park and the First Colony Foundation’s plans for renewed documentary and archeological investigations in search of the Lost Colony on Roanoke Island and the North Carolina mainland. Archeological excavations and geophysical prospecting at the traditional location of the 1587 settlement at the north end of Roanoke Island have recovered remains of a scientific workshop that was part of the Raleigh’s 1585 first colony, but evidence of the 117-person Lost Colony remain elusive.

Another presentation, Prologue to James Towne: Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1585 Lane Colony will discuss how this colony bequeathed a legacy of experience and knowledge that was instrumental for interaction with the Virginia Algonquians and the successful establishment of Jamestown and southern Chesapeake Bay area. The 1585 English experience also taught the value of copper to the Virginia and North Carolina Algonquians, which, some have argued, may actually have saved James Towne from destruction during its first struggling years.

The First Colony Foundation is a park partner that is conducting archeology and research projects involving the history of Roanoke Island and has the goal to locate habitation areas of England’s first and second New World settlements sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh in the 1580s.

A unit of the National Park Service, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site protects and preserves known portions of England’s first New World settlements from 1584 to 1590. The site also preserves the cultural heritage of the Native Americans, European Americans and African Americans who have lived on Roanoke Island.