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AMAZING FIND: Pocahontas' Village Dug Up

Netscape Network News & The Baltimore Sun

Preliminary excavations of the site, located about 16 miles north of Jamestown, have been so promising that Turner says there is "convincing evidence that we have indeed found the village." So far, they've uncovered numerous Indian and European artifacts that are consistent with a substantial village from the period, notes The Baltimore Sun. Among the fascinating finds are small, elongated blue beads that were used by the English in trading with the Indians.

The site on which the archaeologists were digging was an old Virginia farm, located just above the York River. Deep in the ground they have unearthed what they are confident is Werowocomoco, the principal village of the Indian chieftain Powhatan, reports The Baltimore Sun. A powerful tribal leader, he controlled the Virginia Tidewater area when the English established the Jamestown colony in 1607.

Powhatan had a daughter. Her name was Pocahontas.

The story of Pocahontas is the stuff of American legend. It was she who supposedly intervened with her powerful father and pleaded with him to spare the life of Capt. John Smith, Jamestown's military leader. As romantic and exciting as the tale may be, it could be more myth than reality, according to historians. Since Smith never mentioned the incident until 1624 and all the witnesses had long since died by then, it's thought he may have invented the story to help sell his memoirs.

But at least now we know that the village of Werowocomoco (pronounced weh-ro-wuh-KO-muh-ko) existed. "While the association of Werowocomoco with Jamestown is important, it really represents far more--literally, the culmination of over 15,000 years of Native Americans living in what we today call Virginia," E. Randolph Turner III, regional director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, told The Baltimore Sun.
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