miraculously preserved pocket of 17th-century debris marking the site of
the earliest known armorer's forge in British America.

Just beyond, upriver, lie ruins of the Ludwell House and the Third and
Fourth Statehouses. In 1900-01, Col. Samuel H. Yonge, a U.S. Army
Engineer and a keen student of Jamestown history, uncovered and capped
these foundations after building the original seawall. A strange
discovery was made here in 1955 while the foundations were being
examined by archeologists for measured drawings. Tests showed that no
less than 70 human burials lay beneath the statehouse walls, and an
estimated 200 more remain undisturbed beneath the remaining structures
or have been lost in the James River. Here may be the earliest cemetery
yet revealed at Jamestown--one so old that it was forgotten by the
1660's when the Third Statehouse was erected. It is, indeed, quite
possible that these burials, some hastily interred without coffins,
could date from the "starving time" of 1609-10, when the settlers strove
to dispose of their dead without disclosing their desperate condition to
the Indians.

[Illustration: JAMESTOWN EXPLORATION TRENCHES OF 1955 FROM THE AIR.
LANDMARKS ARE THE "OLD CYPRESS" IN THE RIVER, UPPER LEFT, THE
TERCENTENARY MONUMENT, AND THE STANDING RUIN OF THE 18TH-CENTURY AMBLER
HOUSE.]

The highlight of archeological discoveries at Jamestown is undoubtedly
the long-forgotten buildings themselves, ranging from mansions to simple
cottages. Since no accurate map of 17th-century "James Citty" is known
to survive, and as only a few land tracts, often difficult to adjust to
the ground, have come down to us, archeologists found that the best way
to discover evidence was to cast a network of exploratory trenches over