However, that same article:When the curators put the painting on a light table three months later, the star-shaped symbol of a fort appeared under one patch. The location of the fort was just as startling: It lay not on Roanoke Island but some 50 miles away, at the head of Albemarle Sound—matching White’s mention that the colonists planned to relocate “fifty miles into the main.” And on top of this patch was the barely perceptible outline of a fort as well, drawn in what may have been invisible ink made with urine—a hint that the patch was meant to conceal a secret rather than fix an error.
Just a quibble. European (and Asian) diseases generally hopped from wild animals to domestic animals and because of the close proximity, to humans; and because of population densities of heavily agricultural societies, eventually became endemic in the population. The native Americans did not have much in the way of domestic animals, so much less exposure to disease, and diseases spread much less in the sparser-populated areas of the continents. So they had no such diseases to pass to the Europeans. (Although there’s the belief that they did pass syphilis, which did not need livestock as a source… we hope).
OTOH, I recall a study of smallpox among the west coast natives, which said the reason for their decimation was that not only was nobody in the villages immune, so everyone got it at once, but that in a subsistence society there would then be nobody to nurse the sick, so almost all died of exposure dehydration and starvation. Europeans in the same situation would be equally susceptible. The study notes that when there was someone to nurse the sick (i.e. Previously immune or a European missionary), death rates from smallpox among the natives were about the same as with Europeans - only 10% of the infected actually died. The biggest problem was how fast it spread in a community.
Bumped.
I don’t think we’ll ever be completely sure what happened, but here’s this:
“It’s funny that people still pretend that the colonists carved a mysterious word on a tree – ‘Croatoan’ – and no one knows what it means”
IKR? It is funny that anyone still treats this as a mystery. Maybe they just enjoy the frisson of “oo, mysterious, oo” and are reluctant to let go of it.
I watched Leonard Nimoy’s “In Search of” as a kid. All these “mysteries” were new to me. I do remember the one about the Roanoke Colony, and the wiki synopsis says there is an “intriguing new theory” about it. I sure hope it wasn’t aliens, as looking through the episode synopsis there were quite a few about Aliens, even if they were the cause of The Bermuda Triangle, Atlantis. And plenty of silly ones: Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot yet lots of them remain at least not-quite solved mysteries (DB Cooper - likely jumped and died but only some cash has been found). I’m way too cynical to watch such a show now while back then I considered it Science - hey Spock is hosting it!
Yet not much scientific skepticism. How can so many people have seen Bigfoot or Nessie without there being a breeding population. Just one of each?
If the intriguing reason for Roanoke was known in the 70’s, I didn’t know any more till I read this thread.
Yeah, “Smoking Gun” evidence would make a good show. Ignore the Bermuda Triangle, and don’t try and tell me Stonehenge was a landing pad for Aliens, yet you can say that for some reason the rocks were dragged there from Wales (and not teleported by Aliens or carried by British Yeti’s). I think we know a bit more about what happened to Malllory than 50 years ago (Aliens!) and perhaps Easter Island (not Aliens!). I sure hope kids in elementary school aren’t “learning” what I did: Civil War: Slavery. Columbus discovered America, etc…
Maybe a bit of a red flag there…
That led me to read the Daily Fail article and the Wiki, which is at least collaborative and aims to cite things like we do here. The article ends with several " Hypotheses" so I reckon this is not quite a smoking gun. There certainly are plausible theories yet I guess there are many things that will never be solved (almost) to smoking gun level.
Now that the mystery has been solved (complete with museum constructed in 2023), let’s review and replay the fight with ignorance. It’s a mix of facts ignored and what was then a genuine lack of definitive evidence. The Encyclopedia Britannica summarizes the popular consensus:
Since 1998, the Croatoan Project has researched and provided archaeological evidence to back up the theory that the colonists moved to be with, or at least interacted with, the Hatteras tribe. Artifacts and objects found within Croatoan villages that only English settlers had owned or had made at the time have solidified the connection between the two groups. But despite this evidence, and many other theories, it is likely that no definitive answer to the mystery of the colonists’ disappearance will ever be found.
Simply put, the mystery is what exactly happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke? That’s a request for a narrative, one backed by evidence. All that we knew about them was a cryptic word carved on a tree. Did they settle with the friendly Croatoan tribe? Or did they lose to the Secotans, with survivors absorbed into surrounding tribes?
This ignores the pre-arranged agreement to write down where they fled to, and the absence of a cross which would have indicated it was done under duress. So the tree carving isn’t mysterious and indeed points to the more peaceful scenario. Further archeology established at least a temporary English settlement on what is today called Hatteras Island. The smoking gun shows there was a forge there, indicating a permanent settlement. Case closed. Narrative established.
I’m not convinced. If they had a permanent settlement, why didn’t they survive? Especially with a forge. There is still a little mystery there.
They did survive. There were blue-eyed Indians in the environs 100 years later.
Is the narrative complete? Maybe not. But there are big pieces in place. Might the joint community have fallen on hard times in the intervening 100 years? Presumably so. I understand the excavation site is pretty small, so there is more to uncover.
Does any of their remaining DNA match the descendants in Europe?
As though obtaining the DNA of certain blue-eyed Indians from centuries ago were as easy as ordering it from Amazon? In a subtropical humid climate, which North Carolina is, all old DNA may be decomposed. Can’t take it for granted.
It was suggested that (Measure_for_Measure): “let’s review and replay the fight with ignorance”.
Second-hand reports of blue eyed Indians from centuries ago, that might or might not have been descended from Roanoke settlers (if they did exist) doesn’t seem like it’s fighting ignorance any more than other theories.
Good question I say. In 2007 Roberta Estes established the Lost Colony DNA project. As of 2018, they had not yet found a match. Her post goes into some detail on what was known about the Roanoke colony and mixed prospects for insight from modern DNA technology hundreds of years later. I’ll reproduce her request:
So they are not working with old remains (which I’m not sure exist in good repair), but rather more sociological clues.
More specifically:
By the time Europeans actually settled Hatteras Island around the time of the Tuscarora War (1711-1712,) the colonists had been dead for 80 years, if they lived out their lives on Hatteras Island, and their descendants 4 or 5 generations later were viewed as Indians, not Englishmen. Many Native people were killed during the Tuscarora War, and the Hatteras suffered greatly during that time. Their population shrank, their lands were settled by whites and between 1712 and 1756, they were diminished to two men, one woman and a child who were Mattamuskeet, not Hatteras.
It’s certainly probable that some of the Hatteras had intermarried with the European settlers after 1712 and before 1756, but if that occurred, it isn’t noted in any of the records.
More info in link. While definitive DNA evidence may arise, it is entirely plausible that the original colony may have survived yet left no DNA evidence that can be tied conclusively to the original settlers. Absence of evidence here is extremely weak evidence of abscence.
In other words, when they intermingled with a native tribe, their by-then largely integrated (into a native tribe) descendants may have not unsurprisingly may have gotten caught up in the genocide of native tribes.
I wasn’t being euphemistic. The link above discusses the challenges of using DNA evidence this late in the game. But yes, the Hatteras tribe sided with the colonists during the Tuscarora War and were later driven from their lands by other tribes. Some of their descendants may be part of the Lumbee tribe (pop 60,000 c. 2025).
I can see how the DNA would be pretty dispersed by now given our history with the native populations. So good for them for continuing to search.
On the other hand, by not having it we kind of have to shelve the blue eyed Indians as “proof” of their integration for a bit. Thanks for sharing those links. Fascinating reading.
The smoking gun nomenclature is a bit of joke (as is “Case closed”). Scientists test hypotheses but historians weigh evidence and build narratives that can survive skepticism and scrutiny. From the 2023 article linked previously:
“As an archaeologist, I hate the idea of smoking gun,” said Horton. “Because, in most cases, you really can’t point to a specific artifact and say, ‘This is it – This is the smoking gun.’
“Instead, it’s the quantity of material, and what’s most remarkable here is the number of artifacts we have from this time [period.] That is what is so revealing, really… It’s common sense. It’s not exactly rocket science.”
That’s from the same team who announced the, “Smoking gun” a week ago. Still, the hammserscales are a very nice piece of evidence and the main narrative is now much more plausible than competing ones. The Hattaras were not conquered until the 1700s. There was a British settlement on Hatteras Island dating from the 16th century - I suspect it would be difficult to support the counter-hypothesis that this was a more recent colonial settlement because of artifacts like the Nuremberg token and to some extent the Tudor Rose. The British settlement was a permanent one. There are scattered reports of Englishmen living in the area detailed on the DNA website, though admittedly there were a few other Europeans running around the environs around that time.
I’ll backpeddle a little and say we have the foundation for serious historical investigation now and the evidence points towards the Lost Colony’s survival and co-existence with the Hattaras tribe, as opposed to their deaths at the hands of the Secotans.