There are a lot of mysteries continually being investigated at Historic Jamestown, like artifacts that are not fully explained and sites yet to be uncovered.
In recent years, archaeologists thought they may have solved one mystery: the identity of a 17th-century man whose remains were found within the oldest known section of the fort’s churches.
“We had a lot to point us to, this is a pretty interesting figure and a good potential candidate for Sir George Yeardley,” said Mary Anna Hartley, senior staff archaeologist with Jamestown Rediscovery, a branch of the nonprofit Preservation Virginia.
Yeardley was an English captain who came to Virginia in 1610 and ultimately became governor, presiding over the first iteration of the General Assembly. He was also one of the first slaveowners in the American colonies.
After years of genetic analysis, officials now say they’ve eliminated Yeardley as the man found in the old burial.
The process, however, has helped develop a model for how to take advantage of scientific advances in historical DNA moving forward, said Michael Lavin, Jamestown Rediscovery’s director of collections and conservation.
“This is our Maury Povich moment,” he said. Now, “the search continues.”
A grave preserved over centuries
Between 2016 and 2019, Jamestown archaeologists excavated inside the Memorial Church, which was built in 1907 right outside the foundations of earlier churches at the James Fort.
One of the main objectives was to look for the earliest church, which was built in 1617 and hosted “the beginnings of our representative government,” Hartley said.
More than a century ago, a group of women conducted their own excavation of the site and discovered the southern and northern walls.
“Our idea was to find the east and western ends and complete the outline of the church, therefore being able to definitively say where the first General Assembly members met,” Hartley said.
“We're really big on the power of place, being able to place people back in the past with what archeology, history and science can do to complete that picture. And we believe the landscape in which they move through is just as important.”
The project was successful in locating that complete boundary, including the 1617 church built on a foundation of cobblestones capped by a brick wall.
They also found several burial sites that still house human remains, some of which had been discovered by the 19th-century women excavators.
“We started looking for some of the burials they had excavated, and then found some burials that had not been excavated by them that we also decided should be examined,” Hartley said.
Most were associated with a brick church that wasn’t built until the mid-1600s. One set of skeletal remains, however, was found in the chancel of the oldest church on the site, she said.
“It was the lone grave there, and one of the most prominent places you can place a burial.”
Officials determined the bones belonged to a European man who died between the ages of 38 and 44. His skeleton did not show signs of heavy physical labor.
It also appeared that the site was once marked by a tombstone. Nearby, Jamestown archaeologists long ago had uncovered a Knight’s Tombstone believed to have belonged to Sir George Yeardley, who died in 1627.
Given the location, tombstone connection and Yeardley’s prestige in the colony at the time, the Jamestown team thought the remains found in the chancel could be his.
But it would take a lot more time and effort to find out.
Tracing ancient DNA
As soon as they started searching for graves within the church site, Jamestown Rediscovery officials knew they wanted to try and collect DNA for genetic analysis.
That hadn’t been an option in the past, and “it changed our approach from the beginning,” Hartley said.
Remains in the Jamestown area are often fragile and in poor condition because of acidic soils, she said, so they had to be extra careful.
The team started by using ground-penetrating radar to image the bones before digging. They also created a “containment structure” within the church that was climate-controlled and required people passing through to wear protective equipment and sterilize tools.
Eventually, they were able to recover the chancel-buried man’s skeleton pretty much head to toe, Lavin said.
DNA was extracted from the bones at the FBI Laboratory in Quantico. Half of the samples went to forensic geneticist Turi King at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom.
Meanwhile, they had to track down a DNA sample with which to compare the one from Jamestown.
Yeardley, of course, is not around to provide another sample. But professional genealogist Dave Annal was hired to trace Yeardley’s family tree in order to find a living descendant.
“It’s a laborious process,” Annal said in a statement.
Labwork was able to identify the mitochondrial genome of the 17th-century DNA. That genome is passed through a child’s mother, meaning Annal would need to find an unbroken line of women through more than a dozen generations.
After months, he found 10 people around the world descended from Katherin Yeardley, George’s sister. One agreed to share their DNA – and it was not a match.
Now, Jamestown Rediscovery can definitively say they did not find Yeardley’s remains.
But Lavin said the research was still useful and started the process of exclusion.
“The consistent factor in all of this is that archeology is a powerful tool for understanding and interpreting the past,” he said.
Jamestown is often associated with its “celebrities” like Captain John Smith and Pocahontas, Hartley said. But those big names did not stay here for long.
With new opportunities with genetic testing, she hopes they can learn more about the people who “actually lived and died here at Jamestown.”
“With each person that we are able to use genomics to identify, there's more hope that we can identify more of the marginalized people that weren't as high status,” she said – including enslaved Africans who often weren’t listed in official records.
For now, the man in the chancel remains a mystery.
