The History of Archeology in Fort Raleigh National Historic Site

The earthworks at Fort Raleigh were reconstructed through archeology in 1950 after Jean Harrington confirmed their 16th Century age.

NPS Photo

Nearly every day, visitors ask the staff at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site if there have been any archaeological digs done at the site. We get to tell them that very few places in the United States have been as continuously excavated as Fort Raleigh and Roanoke Island. Beginning in 1887, the Roanoke Island Colonial Memorial Association (RCMA), the site’s first preservation organization, contacted the noted newspaper editor and recreational archaeologist Talcott Williams to do some testing in the areas around the old Fort Raleigh. During two separate visits to the island, Williams discovered several nearby Native American sites, but he found very few 16^th-century artifacts. But this did not discourage him or the RCMA. They still maintained the belief that the fort was the site of England’s first colonization. Since the first series of archaeological digs, Fort Raleigh has seen almost continuous archeology searching for clues to the Lost Colony. However, over the years, archeology at the park has also expanded into the site’s other interpretative stories. Recent searches have included Native Carolina Algonquins, Civil War and Freedmen Colony’s camps, as well as more modern uses of the park’s grounds.

From 1895 to the 1950s, most archaeological digs were firmly connected with the RCMA and affiliates to prove the validity of the old fort site. Dr. Jean C. Harrington conducted the most important digs from 1946 through 1948. These digs proved the legitimacy of Fort Raleigh as a 16^th century site and discovered its outline. He discovered several of the artifacts during these digs that are still on display in the Fort Raleigh Visitor Center. Harrington’s research laid the groundwork for the fort’s reconstruction in 1950, giving the site its most visible remnant of the colonization.

This sickle was found by Jean Harrington during an archeology dig at Fort Raleigh.

Archaeological digs in the late 1950s and 1960s continued to search areas of the National Park site, discovering several 16^th century English and Native American items on the Northwest Point, near the fort, and among the grounds of what became the Elizabethan Gardens. Even a Native American ossuary, or burial pit, was discovered and protected on park grounds. The Fort Raleigh site produced many artifacts from the 16^th century, but not as much as other well-known English colony sites, such as Jamestown, VA and Plymouth, MA. But the search never stopped.

The 1970s and 80s saw archaeologists casting a wider net to further develop some of the other stories that Fort Raleigh National Historic Site was chartered to cover. With the additional stories of the Civil War, Freedmen’s Colony, and Fessenden Radio experiment, a new generation of archaeologists came to Roanoke Island to search the land. Dr. David J. Phelps of East Carolina University picked up the mantle of Native American archaeological research, expanding to a nearby stream called Alder Branch. North of the branch, Loretta Lautzenheiser led expeditions looking for signs of Union and Confederate military camps as well as traces of the Freedmen’s Colony in the area surrounding Heritage Point, near the park. During this time, National Park Ranger Philip Evans contributed substantially in 1981 when he suggested a previously discovered element just outside the fort was a watchtower. The structure seemed similar to other sixteenth century watchtowers as other colony sites such as Martin’s Hundred and Jamestown. This resonated with archaeologists and soon became one of their working theories. This would lead to the further identification of the science center site located near the earthen fort. Evans would later find remnants of wooden barrel wells off the northern shore of the site, one of which is on display in the visitor center.

Through the late 1980s and into the 1990s, most archaeological activity wasn’t looking for the Lost Colony, but rather, it focused on complying with NPS rules concerning constructing infrastructure. But in 1991, a notable group of archaeologists, led by the renowned Dr. Ivor Noel Hume, began working on the site looking for English colonization sites. These digs began an almost thirty-year partnership with the NPS. These archaeologists formed the Virginia Company Foundation to take the lead on the digs looking for the Lost Colony. Quickly renamed as the First Colony Foundation (FCF), they would bring the latest in scientific equipment to locate new sites to dig at Fort Raleigh. Ground penetrating radar, radar tomography, underwater archaeology, and Optical Stimulated Luminescence (which determines the last time ground was exposed to light) were some of the latest technologies employed by the FCF to examine the site.

The 2021 archeology dig of the science workshop by the First Colony Foundation uncovered more artifacts and revealed more of the mystery of the buildings purpose.

NPS Photo

A major breakthrough occurred when a FCF member discovered two patches on John White’s “La Virginea Pars” map. Conservators at the British Museum placed the map on a lightbox, and beneath one patch was a dark diamond symbol. The symbol, located fifty miles from Roanoke Island in Bertie County, N.C, is believed to denote a possible fort or settlement location. Building on this discovery, the FCF began a dig at this site in 2012. They located pottery, gun parts, and metallic items from the same time as the Colony at Roanoke. Recently, the FCF has returned to Roanoke Island in the last few years to look for the known Roanoke Native American village near the Fort Raleigh site.

Archaeology is the scientific system that often proves history correct and when both work in tandem they can reveal more about the history of a location. Hopefully, Fort Raleigh continues to see archeology digs to bring the stories of the past closer to us. Just like an archaeological dig itself, every time a visitor asks about the archeology, they begin to uncover a treasure trove of information waiting to be rediscovered.