Dave Bowman / Daily Press MORE FINDINGS * Given the new evidence, archaeologists now calculate the area of the triangular fort at 1.12 acres. * Archaeologists also say that much less of the historic first settlement may have been lost to riverfront erosion than originally estimated in 1996. * A trash pit that bristles with artifacts from the James Fort period was located. TOP STORIES Farms project stalls Water problems roil a community Ex-PTA leader getting jail time Hinckley seeks unsupervised visits with family 2 Blair kids killed in separate crashes Fort's footprint found Archaeologists map exact location, shape and size of James Fort for 1st time By Mark St. John Erickson Daily Press Published August 27, 2003 JAMES CITY -- Archaeologists searching for the elusive footprint of historic James Fort have found the final pieces of the puzzle hidden beneath the 10-foot-high walls of a Civil War earthwork. The milestone discovery comes nearly seven years after the first conclusive evidence of the long-lost riverfront site was uncovered in 1996. But it represents the first time that chief scientist William M. Kelso and his Jamestown Rediscovery colleagues have been able to map the exact location, shape and size of the pioneering 1607 fort, whose triangular wooden palisade enclosed the first permanent English settlement in America. "We realized back then that we had the tiger by the tail, but it was just the tail - just the tip of the iceberg," Kelso said Tuesday, describing the oft-frustrated archaeological investigation. "Now I feel extremely confident that we have the entire iceberg. We found out where to measure from. We connected all the dots. And that's made all the difference in what we know." Kelso and his team began hop-scotching out from the east corner of the stronghold not long after it was discovered in 1996, using measurements recorded by colonist William Strachey as the guide for a persistent series of text excavations. Digging west along the James River, they traced the outline of the fort's long, waterfront palisade for about 180 feet before its remains disappeared under an early 20th-century seawall. They pieced together nearly 250 feet of the east-facing palisade by the same method, but failed to find any evidence of either the circular bulwark with which it was expected to end or the west-facing wall to which it connected. Similar explorations took place through last year, when archaeologists discovered a brick-lined, early 17th-century well inside the walls of an earthen fort constructed on the site during the Civil War. Though the well was filled with armor from the first years of the Jamestown settlement, the surrounding area revealed no other architectural features, leading Kelso to fear that no sign of the elusive west palisade remained to be found. "I've been the biggest doubter - until now," the scientist said, watching his colleagues investigate an elaborate complex of early 17th-century soil stains that marks the presence of a trash-filled moat, the west defensive wall and several graves within the fort's interior. "The good news is that they didn't dig it all up during the Civil War. They just piled the dirt up during construction. So all of it could still be there if we look." More than four weeks of intensive digging was required before the archaeologists, who sifted the soil for artifacts as they worked, made their way down through the northeast wall of the Civil War fort and unearthed the north bulwark of the 1607 stronghold. Bits of charcoal marked the soil stains at the bottom of the 7-foot-deep hole, left by the 1608 fire that destroyed much of the original palisade, said senior staff archaeologist Jamie May. Signs of a newer wall extended out to the east, providing evidence of the more elaborate, five-sided fortification that the settlers constructed after the blaze. Less time was required to uncover the west palisade, which lay hidden under fewer than 12 inches of soil within the interior of the Civil War earthwork. But after an unusually lucky exploratory trench picked up the telltale stains, the archaeologists traced the path of the wall toward the riverfront, where they discovered a trash pit that bristles with artifacts from the James Fort period. "This is a coin that could have come over in one of the first settler's pockets," Kelso said, holding up an English silver half-groat that dates to 1605-1606. "It's the same kind of good stuff we got out of the first trash pit back when we discovered the other end of the fort in '96." Though the west wall was located more than 30 feet from where the archaeologists believed it would be, they blame themselves rather than Strachey for misinterpreting his figures. Laid corner to corner along the newly discovered palisades, the colonist's estimate of a triangular fort that was 300 feet by 300 feet by 420 feet now appears to be off by less than 3 percent on both the west and east sides - and less than 2 percent on the south. What made it unclear was the lack of a reference point from which to start pacing off the lines, May said. "We assumed that he meant the lengths of the palisade walls. But he didn't," she explained. "His measurements went from the center of each bulwark - and that little bit made all the difference." Given the new evidence, the archaeologists now calculate the area of the triangular fort at 1.12 acres. They also say that much less of the historic first settlement may have been lost to riverfront erosion than originally estimated in 1996. "Now we finally know exactly what we have. We know exactly which direction to go," Kelso said. "So I think it's doable - by 2007 - for us to put together a really good picture of what James Fort looked like on the interior." Mark St. John Erickson can be reached at 247-4783 or online at merickson@dailypress.com Copyright © 2003, Daily Press _________________________________________________________________ Get MSN 8 and enjoy automatic e-mail virus protection. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus