In a video interview, Director of Archaeology, Sean Romo and Senior Staff Archaeologist Mary Anna R. Hartley, Staff Archaeologist Gabriel Brown, and Professor Ashley McKeown described the process and results of excavating three burials in the 1607 Burial Ground at Historic Jamestowne in Virginia. Click here for a 22-minute video interview posted on March 5, 2025 by JamestownRediscovery.

In the 1607 cemetery, Sean and Mary Anna choose to excavate three out of the 30 graves that they identified during the Jamestown rediscovery project starting in 2003. Isotope analysis had already revealed a great deal about the individuls buried there.

They first identified graves just inside the West Wall of James Fort. The graves start at the wall and extend east into the western corner of the triangular fort. They were looking at the burials of the first English colonists in North America, the ones who came over here in 1607 and died in the first few months.

Sean and Mary Anna were looking to confirm that this is the 1607 cemetery of the settlement where the men and boys were buried. They could see the remains on the ground penetrating radar survey before the digging began. The burial they described held just a single individual. As they’re go forward, they will have new information to do more forensic and historical research.