Jamestown Rediscovery
Posted 08/18/06
Mary Anna Richardson, an archaeologist at Historic Jamestowne, works with field school students.
Photo by Mark Mitchell.
Charles Durfor (PhD, Chemistry ’80), a senior scientific reviewer with the Food and Drug Administration, spent six weeks this summer sifting happily through the Jamestown soil.
A frequent visitor to Jamestown since age 5, Durfor worked alongside Jamestown archaeologists with fellow students in a field school. Offering six U.Va. credits in anthropology, the school is operated by U.Va.’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies and the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, which owns the site.
“This is the best way to be involved,” Durfor said.
Archaeologist William Kelso, the school’s director, heads the Jamestown Rediscovery team that in 1996 discovered the foundations of the 1607 Jamestown fort, long thought to have disappeared in the waters of the James River. “What a great thing to happen, because of the 400th anniversary,” Kelso said. “It’s something totally new about Jamestown that wasn’t here for any other commemoration.”
The school’s 20 or so participants each summer have been “essential to our being as far along as we are now,” he added. “It’s also been a great opportunity for people to learn about archaeology at a full-scale research project.”
“For me personally, it’s like Stonehenge,” Durfor said.
