A Williamsburg resident who rediscovered the first English colony in North America is publishing a new book about his team’s most recent discoveries in Historic Jamestown.
Dr. William “Bill” Kelso, Director of Archaeology at Jamestown Rediscovery, will be releasing “Jamestown: The Truth Revealed” on May 15, according to a press release from the University of Virginia Press.
“Jamestown, The Truth Revealed” will explore the lives of the earliest English explorers of the James River during the early 17th century, according to the release.
Kelso first visited Jamestown Island in 1963 as a graduate student at the College of William and Mary, according to the Jamestown Rediscovery website. It was assumed at the time the remains of James Fort were underwater as the result of river erosion. Kelso, however, was not convinced.
He launched the Jamestown Rediscovery Project in 1994 with two goals in mind: discovering the original James Fort that dates to 1607, and share discoveries with visitors.
In his new book, Kelso will explain what has been discovered through his team’s excavations of buildings within James Fort, including a church that served as the final resting place for colonial leaders and the home of the New World’s first representative government.
Kelso will incorporate the most recent archaeological evidence and 21st-century advances in technology to tell the tale of Jamestown’s early years and explore the ways in which the colony is more complex than previously thought.
“The unearthing of Jamestown is truly the autopsy of America, an amazing dissection and reconstruction of four-hundred-year-old artifacts and human remains that reveal how the first settlers spent their days, how they lived and died, and what they accomplished and suffered,” said Patricia Cornwall. “Without chief archaeologist William Kelso’s almost mystical vision that the original site still existed and his persistence against all odds to unearth it, we would have little to rely on but legend to tell us how modern America began.”
Today, Jamestown Rediscovery staff members “excavate, interpret, preserve, conserve, and research the site’s findings,” and to date have mapped thousands of archaeological features and have cataloged more than two million artifacts.
“Jamestown, The Truth Revealed” is the sixth book or set of books Kelso has authored. Other titles relating to Jamestown include “Jamestown, the Buried Truth” and the six-volume set “APVA Jamestown Rediscovery.” The release states the 296-page “Jamestown, The Truth Revealed” will be available for $34.95.