IVOR NOEL HUME: Not a trace of the original James Fort
and the first Jamestown that grew with it has yet been found.
There are those even on my own committee
who are satisfied with the conventional wisdom
that the site of James Fort long ago succumbed
to the embrace of the James River
and that nothing remains on land for us to find.
Ladies and gentlemen, I am convinced that they are wrong.
WILLIAM KELSO: Discovery of this significant landmark
as its 400th anniversary celebration approaches in 2007
will indeed rank among the major American archaeological finds of the century.
BLY STRAUBE: I think this project is great in the way that it is bringing
the public into the whole process.
NICK LUCCKETTI: You know, it could be a drainage ditch, could be a boundary ditch.
Maybe it's the ditch for the fort.
We don't know right now, but there's something there,
and it's something that's very, very early.
[music playing]
WILLIAM KELSO: As you may recall Mark Twain remarked,
upon discovering his own obituary,
"Rumors of my recent death have been greatly exaggerated."
Well, today, after finding here at Jamestown
once-shining armor, footprints of a fortification,
and literally looking at the face of a fallen 17th-century adventurer,
I am tempted to say,
"Rumors of the death of James Fort by river erosion were greatly exaggerated."
[laughter and applause]
Indeed, James Fort is found.