Archaeologists are to look into the " lost colony " of Sir Walter Raleigh , searching for more clues as to what happened on Roanoke Island over 400 years ago .
In 1587 , colonizers from England – send by Raleigh and direct by John White – landed on Roanoke Island just off the eastern coast of North America , in what is now Dare County , North Carolina . It was the 2d attempt to countersink up a lasting colony , the first having failed two years before .
During the first year of the second try , it became percipient that the English settler would need more resources and multitude to make a success of the undertaking . Among the problem was a tumultuous relationship with nearby indigenous tribe , which saw one of the settler killed within days of arrivalwhile hunting crabs .
snowy circle sheet for England once more to request extra aid , leaving his family behind on the island . catastrophe struck when the step up war with Spain mean that he was unable to get himself a ship back with the extra help in tow .
It was n’t until three days later that he was in the end able to return to the island . When he get under one’s skin there , he and his crew found that the island was empty . They were all alone , with no indicant of what had happen to his family or the repose of the dependency , bar one : the Good Book " CROATOAN " and the letters " CRO " carved into trees at the boundary line of the colony .
There were no graves and no dead body to indicate anything had gone wrong .
The First Colony Foundation , a mathematical group of archeologist , has now partner with the National Park Service to investigate " America ’s old unsolved mystery " further . They will toil for clues at hopeful location that were surveyed using land - penetrating radiolocation , and explore earthen ramparts likely establish during the 1585 expedition .
“ This slam includes unexampled priming that ’s never been tested archaeologically , ” Jami Lanier , cultural resource manager , said in a statement . “ So , it ’s very exciting to see what may be found . ”
Though the excavation could reveal more artifacts from and entropy about the dependency – premature excavations have bump pottery and tool – it ’s unlikely that they will " lick " the secret , largely because that mystery was probably figure out well over 400 year ago .
The word " CROATOAN " written on the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree referred to a nearby autochthonous group , the Croatans , who still live in Dare County in coastal North Carolina . When White and his crew found the settlement abandoned , their first cerebration was that they had gone to live with the nearby indigenous hoi polloi , who were much more adept at living in the area than the colonizers .
In 1701 , explorer John Lawson chaffer the area to find thatseveral of their ancestors were livid , suggesting that the other theories were right – the English colonist had integrate with the local clan .
It only became a " closed book " later on in the 1830s , thanks to somesensationalist writing . The helpless settlement legend has resurface and has since become an endure mystery story , even being dub the " Area 51 of compound history " .
Theories about the fade – which , to reiterate , is already solved – kitchen range from the colony attempt to come back to England on one of the smaller ships exit behind on the island , to being aggress by the Spanish or local indigenous kinship group . Both of these rely on ignoring the only evidence provide behind at the scene .
The new dig will hopefully unearth some interesting artefact from the colony , and the public is allowed to go down andwatch their oeuvre . But do n’t look anything revelatory : the dependency probably just moved house .
