A mysterious black tombstone that marked the final resting place of a prominent Jamestown resident likely came from Belgium, suggesting that colonists maintained a sophisticated transatlantic trade network with Europe.
That’s according to a new analysis of tiny fossils embedded in the 400-year-old grave cover, which is likely the oldest surviving tombstone in America. Scientists report their findings this week in a new paper published in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology.
“Little did we realize that colonists were ordering black marble tombstones from Belgium like we order items from Amazon, just a lot slower,” says study co-author Marcus M. Key, a geoscientist at Dickinson College, to Phys.org’s Sandee Oster.
Founded in May 1607, Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in North America. For decades, archaeologists have been studying the site and its artifacts, including the black tombstone, which measures roughly 2.5 feet wide by 5.5 feet long.
The stone was initially laid in the floor of Jamestown’s second church, probably in 1627 after the death of Sir George Yeardley, a knight who served as Virginia’s lord governor.
The stone was moved in the 1640s during a construction project, then lost to history for more than 250 years, per the study. After the grave cover was rediscovered in 1901, it was repaired and relocated to the chancel of the Jamestown Memorial Church. The Jamestown Memorial Church was built in 1907 on the same site as three 17th-century churches.
In recent years, archaeologists have been conducting excavation work at Jamestown Memorial Church in hopes of learning more about the site’s history. During that work, they also cleaned and restored the gravestone.
Based on carved indentations made in the gravestone, archaeologists suspect it was once decorated with brass inlays, including one that likely depicted an English gentleman in armor. This led them to believe the stone likely marked the grave of a knight. After reviewing the historical evidence, archaeologists deduced that the knight was probably Yeardley.
The artifact is often referred to as the black marble knight’s tombstone. But it’s actually made out of limestone. (At the time, the stone industry referred to any polished rock as marble.)
With this new study, researchers wanted to figure out where the limestone came from, in hopes of better understanding 17th-century trade routes. For help, they turned to microfossils, or microscopic fossils embedded in the limestone that might offer clues about the stone’s origins.