A team of researchers detailed the discovery of four previously unearthed human remains that apparently belonged to original Jamestown settlers.
According to The Richmond Times-Dispatch, the four people were buried under the altar of a church in Jamestown, which would make them religious leaders at the time. But the researchers also detailed findings that suggested one of them may have secretly been duplicitously practicing another religion.
The men's names were Rev. Robert Hunt, Capt. Gabriel Archer, Sir Ferdinando Wainman, and Capt. William West. Archer was found with a small, sealed box with him in his coffin that contained items a practicing Catholic would have, though the prominent religious was Protestantism.
"With the discovery of four burials in the chancel of the church, we looked forward to the challenge of identifying these individuals by name," Douglas Owsley, division head of physical anthropology at the National Museum of Natural History, said in a press release. "The skeletons of these men help fill in the stories of their lives and contribute to existing knowledge about the early years at Jamestown."
The Smithsonian Institute stated in its release Owsley and his colleagues uncovered their identities using "archaeology, skeletal analyses, chemical testing, 3-D technology and genealogical research." The project is a collaboration with Jamestown Rediscovery.
The researchers determined the men nearly experienced failure in settling Jamestown, as famine and malnutrition was ravaging its people.
"This is an extraordinary discovery," James Horn, president of Jamestown Rediscovery, said in the release. "Two of the men, Archer and Hunt, were with the first expedition, which established Jamestown in May 1607. And the other two, Wainman and West, arrived with Lord De La Warr and helped save the colony three years later. These men were among the first founders of English America."
