Hello all:

This message and my comments appeared on the ARCH-L list but I got no
answer to my inquiry, and never really expected one there as I think most
list members there are prehistorians and could care less about
Pocahontas.  Does anyone out there know about the protohistoric Native
American assemblages in the Chesapeake?

(my comments and questions below)

From: Steve Long
Subject: NEWS: Powhatan's Werowocomoco Found
To: [log in to unmask]

A short excerpt from an AP story this am (sorry don't have a URL at this
time):
"...Researchers said Tuesday that thousands of Indian and European
artifacts found, along with historical descriptions, suggest the farm was
the site of  Werowocomoco, the central village of Powhatan's 17th-century
rule over 15,000 people from the tribes of coastal Virginia.

English Capt. John Smith, leader of the Jamestown colony, would have met
Powhatan on the 50-acre site. It also is where he claimed that Pocahontas
begged her father to spare Smith's life, although historians question the
veracity of Smith's tale.

''We believe we have sufficient evidence to confirm that the property is
indeed the village of Werowocomoco,'' said Randolph Turner, director of the
Virginia Department of Historic Resources' Portsmouth Regional Office. He
said others have proposed that the village was in the same area, but
archaeological research had not been done. Early colonial documents,
including Smith's 1612 map of Virginia, also gave hints of the settlement's
whereabouts, he said.

The site was ''a landscape of power,'' likely chosen to convey Powhatan's
important status, said Martin Gallivan, an assistant professor of
anthropology at the College of William and Mary. This June, the college and
the historic resources department will do more research on the farm...."



From: "Daniel H. Weiskotten" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: NEWS: Powhatan's Werowocomoco Found
To: [log in to unmask]

For those that have not seen the article with photos, let me make a few
comments ...

The Richmond paper showed several shots of hundreds of artifacts from the
site, unfortunately not one of the many artifacts shown was from the time
of Pocahontas, excepting perhaps one nice incised potsherd. Hundreds of
projectile points of all kinds are shown, dating back thousands of years.
The pottery is shown also, but it (the one piece excepted) would be some
centuries before the little lady ever lived.

Now, having grown up studying the protohistoric period (the time between
material influence via trade and actual contact with Europeans) I would say
that there is a massive and diverse assemblage missing from what has been
found.

In my home field of Iroquoia (Central New York) it is pretty well
established that European materials are making it to the Inland groups in
the second half of the 16th century (1550 onward). These items include
glass beads, ornaments and tools made of brass, iron blades and such. By
1600 native made pottery is scarce, chert projectiles are rare, and
complete European-made tools such as iron axes, knives, kettles, glass
beads and wampum are found in great numbers, virtually to the exclusion of
their native-made counter parts. Other materials found with them (welk
shell fragments, shell tempered pottery, walrus ivory, etc.) and
distribution patterns indicate that this material was flowing in from the
south via the Chesapeake and from the north via the St. Lawrence.

Now, consider that Pocahontas was but a wee child when John Smith crossed
her path in 16-0 whatever, and considering that Indians groups hundreds of
miles up the Chesapeake Bay and hundreds of miles inland beyond that had
loads of European goodies for at least a couple generations previous, then
one would assume that the Indians living right on the corridor through
which these wonderous materials passed would also have acquired at least
some of these imported goods and left them behind in their archaeological
assemblages.

Now, it is possible that the lady who found the artifacts didn't think to
pick up the scrap brass, but I can assure you she could not have ignored
all the pretty beads, some of which in this period are the size of juicy
grapes and all the colors of the rainbow. She should have glorious handfuls
beads if the site is what it is supposed to be.

Can anyone illuminate us on whether these things have been found but the
pictures showed only the nifty arrowheads?

Also, just what would a near-Chesapeake proto-historic and early historic
period native assemblage consist of?

I would expect to see not much different than what the settlers were
sporting (weapons and armor excepted, of course) and lots of trinkets and
scraps of copper.

Are there any good protohistoric site reports for the tidewater region?? I
can point to a couple dozen books and scads of articles about the same
period in the northeast, but know nothing of the tidewater region's
literature on this fascinating time.

(oh, and I'm not at all doubting that this is or near the site, and I can't
wait to see what excavation reveals, I am just curious why no artifacts of
Pocahontas' time were illustrated).

Dan W.

(a later note:  a friend who has seen the collection from the site as
arranged by the property owner in scores of flats says that the historic
artifacts consisted of ceramics that indicated a slightly later time than
Pocahontas [stonewares, etc.] and that she did not see any beads or copper
artifacts [although she did not see all the artifacts])