Mike Z (Zee) and Doug Stover, National Parks Service staff at Fort Raleigh National Park told me that some archaeologists were coming to the Park to do a dig and that I should meet them and contact archaeologist Nick Lucketti, from the First Colony Foundation, to make arrangements to do so. I called Nick and though he isn't coming personally he told me that I need to make contact with them when they arrive. They were coming with students from Mercer University to do a dig near the Earthen Fort. He also told me to look out for a book written by Ivor Noel Hulme about artefacts found at the 'Martin's Hundred' site near Williamsburg VA. Its in 2 volumes and volume 2 lists all the finds. I have since borrowed a paperback version about the site from a friend, Brian, and its proving to be a fascinating read so far, with North Devon pottery sherds being identified at the site – more on this later!
The 2 Erics – Klingelhofer and Deetz, eminent archaeologists, turned out to be a mine of information and proved to have some great contacts and were extremely generous with passing on names of people / organisations I should make contact with and places I should visit in the future to follow the North Devon Pottery trail. Alas some of these I won't get to visit on this trip as they include St Mary's in Maryland, Newfoundland, Maine, Ireland and Barbados.
Shame I can only do one Winston Churchill Fellowship in my lifetime!
Contacts they did give me that I can do on this trip are The De Witt Wallace Museum in Williamsburg, the Flowerdew Hundred Foundation at UVA in Charlottesville and the Department of Historic Resources in Richmond.
Nothing of any significance was found on the dig, apart from 2 postholes. I have finalised appointments to visit all these places and people this week, when I leave Manteo (the 26th) and head back up into Virginia. So a bit of an itinerary change, but an opportunity not to be missed.
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