A couple weeks ago, Senior Staff Archaeologist Mary Anna Hartley presented recent research on the possible location of Civil War-era contraband barracks at Jamestown to the Surry Historical Society. Surry is just across the river from Jamestown. When the Union occupied Jamestown Island, historic documents reveal that enslaved people swam from Surry across the river to self-emancipate under the protection of the Union. These newly freed people were housed at Jamestown and, hopefully, archaeology can reveal where exactly that was. Mary Anna, as well as Director of Archaeology Sean Romo, shared this research with members of the Surry Historical Society, who are assisting with genealogical research. They were also joined by Jamestown Rediscovery team member, Jonathan Ellis, who has several family connections to descendants of those who escaped slavery at Jamestown. Stay tuned to learn more about this exciting research! (fb)

This seemingly unremarkable little artifact is actually a fairly unique find for us! It's a keratin scute that was excavated from the Smithfield Well, believed to be ca. 1617. It's essentially like a fingernail that grows over a turtle's carapace (the shell) in segments and eventually sheds. As an organic material, keratin scutes decay very quickly outside of anaerobic environments, so these are rare finds at Jamestown. Check out more faunal and organic artifacts on our online artifact archive! More artifacts are added all the time, so there's always something new to explore. https://historicjamestowne.org/collections/artifacts/ 📸 1-2: Zooarchaeologist Magen holds the keratin scute between her fingers and in her palm. 3 - Time for your close-up! A 10x magnified photo of the scute helped identify this cool artifact. (fb)