Thanks and the Dogs of Tsenocomoco
Nova Virginiae tabvla, drawn by Willem Janszoon Blaeu, cartographer (1571-1638) and Dirck Gryp (Amsterdam: Ex Officina Guiljelmi Blaeuw, ?, 1630). Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2021586022/, November 10, 2024.
By Marcy Rockman, Lifting Rocks Climate and Heritage Consulting, for the SHA Climate Heritage Initiative
One of the superpowers of historical archaeology is its capacity to take stories we think we know well and give us new perspectives on them. One of the dangers of climate change is that it is removing this capacity out from underneath us.
In this week of Thanksgiving in the US, it’s a tradition to look back to experiences of early English colonization in North America. And from grade-school replica Pilgrim hats onward, it’s easy to think we know enough about what happened. But new research on dogs during the early settlement of Jamestown is showing us that there is much more to learn.
This new work looks at the ancient DNA of dog remains recovered from Jamestown, which was within the Indigenous region of Tsenacomoco. Historical sources note that dogs were brought to the Americas over the course of colonial settlement as companions and for help with hunting and other tasks. Indigenous communities of Tsenacomoco also valued dogs for many similar reasons. And this is where it gets interesting, because results of the DNA analysis show that not only were dogs part of the Jamestown settlement from its early days – but at least several of those dogs were Indigenous. Thus what we can now see of relationships between communities of Tsenacomoco and the colonists of Jamestown is that they were more complex and intertwined than they were previously understood to be.
This lens on the past is something to be thankful for, but please know – it is rapidly dimming. As a consequence of rising sea levels, the water table under Jamestown Island is rising and saturating archaeological remains from below. As archaeologists of the Jamestown Rediscovery Project shared with me earlier this year, this rising water is dissolving bone and removing potential for future DNA studies.
For a listing of all blog posts in this series, visit our Climate Heritage Initiative page.
