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[trowel scraping]
- So I'm here on our seawall,
which was put in in 1901 by the Corps of Engineers
engineer actually named Samuel Yonge.
And this seawall has helped protect the island since that time.
Now, the majority of erosion that goes on out here,
in terms of land loss
on the Preservation Virginia property,
has actually not been, necessarily, sea level rise to this point,
or up to this point, or paddleboats or Sea-Doos or something like that.
It's actually been windborne erosion.
So today's a beautiful day, and it's actually pretty calm
after the recent hurricane we had, but when we look down the seawall,
you can see that it extends around the edge of the property on the river side,
and that was put in to abate the actual windborne erosion.
So 90% of the time when you visit Jamestown,
you're able to see that the wind blows out of the West
and there's a long fetch, what they call a fetch,
which is the distance out there
where there's no trees or land to stop the wind from blowing.
So that's a pretty excessive-- it's about seven miles,
and the wind blows across the river and is actually lapping up on--
as if the island is a ship going into the wind.
And so over the centuries, the island has eroded quite a bit
where you see the ferry way out there and has eventually come to this point
and in 1901 was stopped.
That's really the reason that we exist as an organization
here on the island, because in 1893, Preservation Virginia came out here,
and there was a complaint that 200 paces west of the tower,
human remains were eroding into the water.
And so in a somewhat-- I guess we say "modern" sense
for us as an organization,
that's been issues with erosion and storm damage.
And this seawall has been one of the best things,
obviously, to happen to the property.
Now, it's not the first.
We know historically that there have been many hurricanes
and erosion issues out here on the island,
and we often see that when we're excavating.
So right here behind me, as we start to excavate--
the drive of this excavation is actually to look at part of James Fort,
but also to look at the end of the seawall.
We've got some damage over there in the corner
where the seawall has cracked and subsided,
and we want to go back and look at that, but in the process, we're going to get
a great view and understanding, an additional understanding,
of the eastern bulwark, or gun emplacement, of James Fort.
And so years ago,
when I first started working here in 2001,
we were excavating just over here behind me
in what was called the John White warehouse.
And as we dug down, we encountered a sand layer
that we believe was attributed to a hurricane
that nearly wiped out the colony in the 1660s.
There's good historical documentation for that,
and it was on top of the remains of the structure,
a sandy wash flood layer that was on top of there
that was after the building was constructed in the '40s.
So this isn't-- you know, hurricanes and storm erosion and damage
aren't a new thing to the project.
They're something that has always been an issue here.
It was certainly likely a surprise for the English,
because there are not a lot of hurricanes in England.
Now, where I'm standing, since I've worked with the project
in its inception in '94 up until when I was a full-time employee in 2001,
we've regularly had water up to about my waist level,
which is quite impressive, across the entire island.
And that is, as you may imagine,
a function of climate change and sea level rise.
Now, over the years, we've been
looking at and addressing that in terms of this property,
and it's something that is not just a Jamestown Island concern,
but a Tidewater Virginia concern.
And much of what we're looking at is modern erosion, not just here,
but across the island with our partners at the Park Service
and how we can look to preserve the sites that aren't just James Fort,
but all the many iterations of sites over time as the colony expanded.
And that's absolutely critical, because over 400 years of history
for the English, enslaved, and First Africans and First Peoples
that lived on the island after the inception of the colony in 1607,
but also 12,000-plus years of occupation
at different portions of the island that aren't necessarily right here.
So it's something that's ongoing and something that we'll probably continue
to deal with the rest of our careers,
and several generations of archaeologists that have to deal with it as time goes on.
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