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Popular Archaeology Archaeologists begin to uncover evidence of what may be the church where Pocahontas, the famous daughter of the 17th century Powhatan tribal nations chief, and who arguably saved the life of legendary English explorer Captain John Smith, was baptized and married. 
Archaeologists excavating in the area where remains of the 1607 James Fort on Jamestown Island in Virginia were discovered are now encountering possible traces of the 1608 church where Pocahontas, the daughter of the Indian Emperor that headed the Powhatan tribal nations, and who arguably saved the life of the legendary 17th century explorer John Smith, was baptized and then married in 1610. Jamestown Island was the location of the first successful, permanent English colony in what is now the United States. While excavating during the summer of 2010 within the area where the 1607 James Fort was found, archaeologists came across a posthole in the soil that was unusually deep and wide. A posthole is much like a "footprint" left in the soil, indicating where soil had been removed and worked in the past to place a wooden post or log as part of the structure of a building. Usually, within the center of the posthole "footprint" is another "footprint" of the actual post or log (called a post mold), showing the differentiated color of the soil where the post or log had decayed and turned into soil. The posthole unearthed during the summer of 2010 was, compared to most other postholes found at the Jamestown site, unusually large and deep. This suggested that it supported a large structure -- something substantially larger than, for example, a settler's house. Moreover, the posthole correlated with the location of the wooden 1608 church described by William Strachey, the secretary of the Virginia colony, in a letter written in 1610. This was the probable church where Pocahontas was baptized in 1613 or 1614 and then later married to colonist John Rolfe soon thereafter. As described by Strachey, "It is in length three-score foot, in breadth twenty-four, and shall have a chancel in it of cedar and a communion table of the black walnut, and all the pews of cedar, with fair broad windows to shut and open, as the weather shall occasion, of the same wood, a pulpit of the same, with a front hewn hollow, like a canoe, with two bells at the west end. It is so cast as it be very light within, and the lord governor and captain general doth cause it to be kept passing sweet and trimmed up with divers flowers, with a sexton belonging to it." The actual structure and its features as described by Strachey have long since disappeared through 400 years of time and elements, but the tell-tale shadows left in the earth by its frame may finally be emerging under careful excavation. Following the hunch left by Strachey's letter, they began excavating according to the old church's plan dimensions. They uncovered more postholes, fitting the characteristics of the first and matching the projected locations based on the probable location of the posts constituting the church frame. Says a senior archaeologist with the Jamestown Rediscovery excavations project at the site, "So far things are looking good for our theory that this is a strong candidate for the 1608 church. We're keeping our fingers crossed that this is going to end up being that church." Efforts to uncover more postholes and other possible features and artifacts associated with the structure will be a focus of excavations and research during the coming months in 2011. More information about this and other discoveries and activities at the Jamestown site can be found at the Jamestown Rediscovery website.
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