Roanoke Colonies Research Newsletter
Volume 2.1 (November 1994)

NC Archaeological Society Discusses Roanoke Island Colonization, Other Topics
by Charles Ewen, East Carolina University

On Saturday, October 8, East Carolina University not only beat the South Carolina Gamecocks but, more importantly, hosted the annual meeting of the North Carolina Archaeological Society. The Society is an eclectic blend of amateur, student, and professional archaeologists who share an interest in the history and prehistory of the state. The annual meeting is an opportunity for this diverse group to get together and find out about each other’s projects and to discuss the future of North Carolina’s past. Two of this year’s four presentations had connections to Roanoke Colonization. Participants at this year’s meeting included amateurs from eastern North Carolina, members of the faculty of ECU and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and staff of the North Carolina State Archaeologist’s Office in Raleigh.

The first paper of the program was presented by John Byrd (ECU Department of Anthropology/Institute for Historical and Cultural Research) which summarized archaeological investigations of pre-history in the eastern part of the state. The goals of this work were threefold: to determine cultural history, to describe past lifeways, and to explain cultural processes. The first two goals have been largely realized thanks, in part, to the work of David Phelps and his colleagues at such sites as Davenport, Kearney, and Jordan’s Landing. Although a good chronological framework has been established and much has been learned about the past lifeways of the early inhabitants of coastal Carolina, Byrd noted that we have a long way to go before we can begin to explain the processes responsible for this behavior. But, then, so do archaeologists everywhere.

David Phelps (ECU Department of Anthropology/Institute for Historical and Cultural Research) followed Byrd’s presentation with a detailed discussion of the past five seasons of work at the Tuscarora fort near Snow Hill, North Carolina. Besieged and destroyed by Colonel James Moore in 1713, Nearoka Fort was the last major engagement of the 1711-1715 Tuscarora War. Phelps’s work demonstrated that, even though modern farming practices had destroyed the upper levels of the site, enough remained to graphically illustrate the final desperate days of the embattled defenders of the fort. European and Native artifacts and faunal remains reveal an interesting syncretic blend of cultural traditions for the historic Tuscarora.

Appropriately after lunch, R. Stephen Davis (Archaeology Research Lab, UNC-Chapel Hill) offered an account of his work at UNC-Chapel Hill’s first tavern. Established in 1779, the tavern was integral to early town life. By 1850 it had expanded into a boarding house (the Eagle Hotel) which housed nearly half of the student population. The archaeological work was undertaken as part of UNC’s bicentennial observance and attracted thousands of visitors over the course of the fieldwork. Davis was able to overcome a bewildering variety of later intrusions to isolate the original tavern structure and recover artifacts dating to the earliest occupation. The digging has finished and the site backfilled, but analysis of the material assemblage is ongoing and will appear in the final report.

The final presentation of the day was to be a summary by Bennie Keel (National Park Service) of the archaeological investigations that have been conducted at Fort Raleigh. Unfortunately, Keel was unable to attend, but he did send a paper which David Phelps read. The first investigations of the site were actually conducted by an expedition from Jamestown in 1608. The site was visited over the next couple of centuries and the remains of the fort were still visible as late as 1850. Indeed, the site was even looted during the Civil War. Formal investigation began with Talcott Williams during the early part of the twentieth century and culminated with the recent work by Ivor Noël Hume and the Virginia Company (a private contract firm).

The Park Service, itself, has and continues to conduct research on the site. Besides taking care of the mandated cultural resource management needs (e.g. placement of waterlines, etc.), NPS archaeologists have conducted remote sensing exercises at the site and have pursued some of their own research questions. One of the current questions concerns the presence of Indian pottery in association with European artifacts of the colony. Keel feels that this is not the result of an Indian occupation of the fort after its abandonment by the English. Rather, he thinks it more likely that the colonists were using the local pottery to augment the limited amount of European ceramics that they were able to bring with them from England.

The conference concluded with a visit by some of the participants to the site of Blue Banks, a Civil War period fortification owned by the Society. The weather in the early afternoon made this last activity a perfect way for many of the participants to end their trip to Greenville. The activities also wound down in time for the participants to catch the last quarter of the Pirate’s victory over the Gamecocks. All in alla very pleasant autumn afternoon.

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