Artifacts Reveal Native American Villages Unearthed in Virginia

Artifacts unearthed in the Fones Cliffs area of Virginia's Rappahannock River may provide evidence of a Native American village described by English colonist John Smith. Archaeologist Julia King from St.

Marys College of Maryland and her colleagues utilized Smith's early seventeenth-century writings and the oral histories of the Rappahannock Indian Tribe to guide their excavation. The team recovered approximately 11,000 artifacts at two sites: a sixteenth-century settlement that Smith likely mapped, and an early eighteenth-century site believed to have been occupied by a settler known as 'Indian Peter,' potentially the son of a Rappahannock woman.

The findings confirm both oral histories and historical documents indicating settlements in the area during 1608, when Captain John Smith spent several weeks mapping the Rappahannock River. The geography of Fones Cliffs offered natural protection and fertile soil for agriculture, particularly corn.

Rappahannock people view the greater river valley as their homeland, irrespective of current land ownership. Ceramics discovered atop the cliffs suggest a fifteenth- to early seventeenth-century Native settlement, reinforcing the significance of this archaeological work in understanding pre-colonial history.