Editor’s Note: Tabb’s Trails is a commentary photo-essay series with coastal reporter, photographer and hiking enthusiast Kip Tabb. Post has been updated.

Although it has been a dry year so far at Nags Head Woods Preserve, the protected maritime forest on the Outer Banks is a lush and vibrant green. Songbirds flit among the branches. The raucous cry of woodpeckers is distinctive and unmistakable.

Actually, the more than 1200 acres of protected maritime forest along the Roanoke Sound has been drying out for the past few years, and the freshwater ponds that dot The Nature Conservancy’s preserve are showing the effects. Ponds that are usually picture book-reflecting pools are shallow and covered in algal growth.

The ponds are at the base of a series of hills. “They are relict sand dunes,” said Lora Eddy, conservation coordinator for the preserve. You can “take a core sample of the soil, and it’s just a very thin layer of organic with just sand.”

Those ponds, even if they are low, are the key to the verdant growth of the woods, which the nonprofit organization calls “one of the largest remaining maritime forests on the East Coast.”

“It’s really neat how areas between our relic dunes hold rainwater and help provide a little bit of extra water for the forest, wicking up some of that groundwater and that’s in here so they can sustain themselves,” Eddy said.

The best guess is Nags Head Woods formed around 700 to 1,000 years ago, although it could be older than that. Protected from the salt spray and ocean winds by natural sand dune systems at Jockeys Ridge State Park to the south and Run Hill to the north, the woods are filled with old-growth trees, marsh and upland habitats that have withstood everything nature has thrown them for hundreds of years.

“You think about these really cool coastal habitats, they’re just used to change,” Eddy said. “That’s the amazing thing about coastal habitats.”

There are more than 8 miles of trails and the variety is one of the best features of the reserve, Eddy continued.

The preserve seems to offer trails for everyone, including the quarter-mile Center Trail, a loop around two freshwater ponds by the visitor center. It is a very easy trail and a great introduction to enjoying the forest for young legs.

The Sweet Gum Trail is certainly more demanding. Hikers climb ridges with elevation gains that make it seem almost like a mountain trail.

The Sweet Gum Trail connects with the Blueberry Ridge Trail to create a challenging 3.75-mile hike.

There is also an Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA, Trail with two accessible parking spaces. The 1,850-foot boardwalk circles a pond fed from Roanoke Sound. It may be the best birding trail in the reserve.

In the winter, yellow-butted warblers are ubiquitous, red-bellied and pileated woodpeckers are common and there’s an occasional green heron that can be seen on the fringes of the pond.

At the beginning of the ADA Trail is a butterfly garden. The flowers are just now coming into bloom, but the butterflies have been flitting through the reserve since the first warm weather of April.

Nags Head Woods participates in the Carolinas Butterfly Monitoring Program that “aims to track butterfly populations using scientifically sound, standardized survey methods as well as opportunistic sightings across both North and South Carolina.”

It is a community-based science program and Eddy is enthusiastic about it.

“We are using the scientific method called the Pollard Walk,” she said. “I imagine there’s this circle around me as I walk, and as I walk, I count butterflies within that circle. It’s a lot of fun. When I talk to kids who are visiting, they’re asking me what I’m doing, carrying a clipboard and chasing butterflies.”

The squirrels are out in force this year, dancing out of the way of cars as drivers navigate Old Nags Head Road, possibly one of the last maintained dirt roads on the Outer Banks.

The road is located in Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head and is jointly maintained by the towns. The road, Eddy said, “takes a lot of maintenance.”

The speed limit on the road is 15 miles per hour and for a good reason. It’s only one lane, and meeting an oncoming car involves seeing who has the closest place to back up to allow the other car to pass.

The annual Nags Head Woods 5K hosted by the First Flight Rotary Club takes place every year on Old Nags Head Road the Saturday before Mother’s Day. The race just celebrated its 40th year.

It’s a beautiful road and one of the oldest in Dare County. N.C. State Highway Commission maps from the 1930s show a dirt road heading west off what is now N.C. 12 and then going south along Roanoke Sound until it reaches Nags Head.

Now gone, there was a small but thriving community at Nags Head Woods. The Nature Conservancy published a book in 1987, “Everyone Helped His Neighbor: Memories of Nags Head Woods,” that was reissued in July 2018 featuring interviews with those who lived there.

There are still a few homes on the edge of the woods along Roanoke Sound, but the forest has been largely uninhabited for over 40 years.

MANTEO — Shoaling in a Roanoke Sound channel just outside Shallowbag Bay has once again prevented the state attraction Elizabeth II from leaving its moorings at Roanoke Island Festival Park for maintenance.

And once again, Dare County has agreed to help manage another dredging project for the state so the ship can motor to the Wanchese state shipyard for its overdue haul-out.

“We’re still essentially in the planning stages,” Dare County Waterways Commission administrator Barton Grover said in a recent interview. “We’re not exactly sure what path we’re going to take moving forward.”

The 43-year-old wooden-hulled vessel, built to represent a 16th-century English sailing ship that participated in Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1584-1587 Roanoke Voyages, was last hauled out for dry-dock maintenance in 2021, after sitting in brackish water for four years.

Grover said that the proposed project would be addressing the same clogged area near where the channel intersects at Roanoke Sound and Shallowbag Bay that had earlier blocked the ship from moving.

In November 2020, the county had approved a contract and a grant application to conduct maintenance dredging in the channel to allow larger vessels, including the Elizabeth II, to access Manteo harbor. The vessel, which has an 8-foot draft, was able to safely leave its dock in Dough’s Creek about a week earlier than completion of the project in late February 2021, according to the county website.

Although the Roanoke Channel is officially a federally authorized channel, Grover explained that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pipeline dredge does not do work north of Wanchese. Ultimately, a bucket-and-barge method was used for the 90-day project, which increased the depth of about 2.2 miles of channel from as little as 1 to 5 feet to 9 feet. Another 290 feet in a connector channel to the ship’s berth was also dredged. Costs for the $1.9 million project were appropriated by the North Carolina General Assembly, with an additional $170,000 provided by the state’s Shallow Draft Navigation Channel Dredging and Aquatic Weed Fund and the town of Manteo.

Some of the factors that come into play with the proposed dredge project, Grover said, include higher costs to dispose of the dredged material, as well as the lack of an obvious disposal area.

In the earlier projects, the material — scooped from the channel, piled onto a barge and then transported to land — was hauled off in a truck to the be placed on top of the county’s Manns Harbor landfill. But the increased expense may have made that option less attractive, he said. Other possibilities could include placement in a permitted area of water, or beneficial re-use along a shoreline or other area, he said.

Another consideration under review is whether the local hopper dredge Miss Katie would be capable of doing the necessary work instead of again using a bucket-and-barge method, Grover said. But the choice of an appropriate disposal site could also come into play in determining costs for that dredge to reach the site.

Typically planning and permitting for a similar dredge project takes at least “six-plus” months, he said. Also, the state has yet to secure the funding. Ideally, he said, a project would be ready to go during the upcoming winter of 2026-2027.

By then, the 69-foot-long ship will have been sitting in the brackish water alongside its dock in Dough’s Creek for about six years.

Michele Walker, assistant communications director at the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, said in an email responding to questions from Coastal Review that the last condition report was done by surveyor Paul C. Haley with Capt. G. W. Full & Associates Marine Surveyors in 2016, when numerous issues, including signs of rot and deterioration of the exterior and interior, were detailed.

When the vessel was hauled out in 2021, she added, Haley did not travel to the Outer Banks because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but he verified with the firm’s staff on site that the earlier repair recommendations had been completed.

“In addition, the ship is inspected annually by the U.S. Coast Guard,” Walker wrote. “This provides us approval to operate as an attraction vessel, which allows us to have passengers on board while moored.”

Walker added that the ship is maintained above the waterline throughout the year, with more extensive maintenance done while Roanoke Island Festival Park, a state museum that memorializes regional English precolonial and Native American history, and the adjacent Elizabeth II State Historic Site are closed January through mid-March.

Haley’s 2021 report, while emphasizing his familiarity with the vessel from doing the surveys in 2004, 2011 and 2016, also lauds the park for always following through on the surveyors’ recommendations.

Notably, when compromised planking documented in the earlier survey had been replaced, he said, the frames exposed during the work were observed to be in good condition. Also, all the critical repairs and plank replacements had been completed, he said.

“The vessel has a good maintenance program by the park and they haul out the vessel on a regular basis for repainting of the bottom and doing any maintenance work that requires the vessel being out of water,” he wrote.

Except for a few months in the winter, the Elizabeth II welcomes visitors aboard to experience a sailor’s view of ship life and duties, guided by interpreters in period costumes who regale them with stories.

As a representative vessel, the Elizabeth II was built based on knowledge of the tools, materials and basic designs used in Elizabethan-era shipbuilding, but there are no original design sketches of the actual merchant ships that sailed during the late 1500s to Roanoke Island from England. Still, the three-masted, square-rigged ship with dashing blue-and-white markings contrasting with its wooden hull — even while rarely moving from its dock across from the Manteo waterfront — has reliably served its mission as an ambassador for the state, the Outer Banks and Manteo’s heritage as the site of the first English colony in America.

But since the flashy ship’s 1984 launch during the town’s 400th anniversary celebration of the Roanoke Voyages, which culminated in the ill-fated “Lost Colony” that was never seen again after its governor left for supplies in 1587, once-routine day trips to visit coastal ports or join in community festivals fell by the wayside due to lack of funds, scheduling difficulties and other challenges. And gradually, even annual haul-outs started being delayed for multiple years, despite that prolonged time in the water for wooden hulls can lead to damage from shipworms and rot.

The ship’s current dockside stranding was not anticipated during the last review five years ago.

“It is the plan of this office to be present and to conduct a full survey at the haul out at the beginning of 2022,” Haley wrote in the report. “With this in mind, it is our opinion that the vessel is suitable for her present use.”

On Dec. 18, the nonprofit Friends of Elizabeth II indicated no intent to give up the ship, so to speak, posting a notice seeking to hire a new captain for the vessel. Applications were due Jan. 29. In addition to overseeing the maintenance of the ship and leading the crew and interpreters, the job’s responsibilities include training staff and volunteers in rigging, sailmaking and marine woodworking.

The required duties also illustrate that the Elizabeth II isn’t just a pretty ship decorating a small historic North Carolina town’s harbor. The captain must not only understand Coast Guard regulations associated with “moving watercraft” through waterways, the captain must be capable of “sailing the Elizabeth II as needed.”

A public hearing on a proposed 3-acre shellfish lease in Roanoke Sound has been set for early next month.

The May 6 public hearing on Herring Shoal Shellfish Co.’s application for a bottom and water lease column in the Dare County waterway will be held at 6 p.m. in the Dare County Government Office, 954 Marshall C. Collins Drive, Room 168, Manteo.

The hearing, hosted by the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, will also be held via Webex.

Public comments on the application will be accepted in person or online. Anyone wishing to speak online must register by 4 p.m. May 5.

In-person speakers may sign up 5-6 p.m. the date of the hearing.

Additional information, including the Webex link, call-in number, presentation slides, and biological report are available at the division’s website.

Written comments on the application will be accepted through 5 p.m. May 7 online and by mail to N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, Shellfish Lease & Aquaculture Program, P.O. Box 769, 3441 Arendell St., Morehead City, N.C. 28557.

For more information, contact the division’s Marla Chuffo at 252-515-5480 or marla.chuffo@deq.nc.gov.

From the editor: Kip Tabb, who resides on the Outer Banks and writes for Coastal Review and other regional publications, documented his recent walk along the Freedom Trail at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.

The Freedom Trail on the north end of Roanoke Island is a beautiful walk through history. A history that is both uplifting and troubling.

Beginning at the visitor center of Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, the trail is an easy 2.5-mile out and back hike through a verdant maritime forest that ends at Freedmen’s Point on Croatan Sound.

Depicting the story of the Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island, interpretive signs along the path give details of what life was like there. Metal silhouette statues stand behind the signs in silent testimony to the tale that is told.

The Freedmen’s Colony is the story of the enslaved people who came to Roanoke Island desperate for freedom and hope.

It is a story that is interwoven with the men and women who came from the North to help an illiterate population learn to live in a free society.

After Union forces seized Roanoke Island in February 1862, enslaved people came by the hundreds and even thousands to the island, seeking refuge and freedom.

At first, the men and women who had escape bondage were called “contraband.” Because the South was in rebellion against the North, any property seized was considered contraband of war.

In the South, enslaved people were considered property and based on that premise, they were not returned.

Even before President Abraham Lincoln’s Jan. 1, 1863, Emancipation Proclamation, enslaved people behind Union lines were considered free people.

In 1863 the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony was officially established. It was the first in North Carolina and one of the first in the nation. At its peak, according to an 1864 census, it had a population of 3,901.

In 1867 it was disbanded.

About the trail

Along the trail are eight interpretive signs and nine silhouettes that represent individuals who lived and worked at the Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island, according to the National Park Service.

The trail was unveiled June 1, 2024, during a ceremony organized by the National Park Service and the Dare County Trails Commission.

The sign, “Roanoke Island Before 1862,” with silhouettes representing Annice Jackson and her daughters, Marie and Alice in the background, highlights Marie Ferribee Watkins, who “was born enslaved in North Carolina. Through the strong will of her mother Annice Ferribee, she was able to become part of the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony. After beginning formal education at the colony, she went to present-day Hampton University, becoming a college graduate and eventually an educator,” the National Park Service website states.

The nine silhouettes represent different people who were part of the history of the Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island.

When war came to Roanoke Island, Thomas Robinson who grew up enslaved on Hatteras Island, helped Union forces navigate the local waters.

He never officially was part of the Freedmen’s Colony, but stayed with Gen. Ambrose Burnside throughout the war. Afterwards, records show he moved to Rhode Island.

The thirst for literacy was intense among the residents of the Freedmen’s Colony. During its time on Roanoke Island, 10 schools were established.

“Arriving on Roanoke Island as an illiterate fourteen-year-old boy and leaving three years later as an accomplished scholar and educator, Reverend London L. Ferebee exemplifies how many Freed people used the Roanoke Island Freedmen’s Colony as a springboard into emancipated life,” according to the park service.

As the colony became established, missionaries from the north came to teach in schools and spread the Gospel. Of particular note was Horace James.

“Horace James was an evangelical minister from Massachusetts who served as a Union Army chaplain and director of the Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island. A graduate of Yale University, James enlisted as Army chaplain of the Twenty-Fifth Massachusetts Volunteers on October 29, 1861. In April, 1863, Major General John G. Foster appointed James “Superintendent of All the Blacks” in the Department of North Carolina. Based in New Bern, James was put in charge of the colony,” according to the park service.

In May 1863 the US Colored Troops was formed and many of the men of the Freedmen’s Colony enlisted, among them were Richard Etheridge, who went on to be the Pea Island Lifesaving Station Keeper and Spencer Gallop.

“Spencer Gallop worked on Roanoke Island cutting down trees for the Union forces after the Battle of Roanoke Island. When the Army began recruiting on the island, Spencer enlisted and served in the 36th U.S.C.T. becoming one of the first official Black soldiers in the U.S. Army,” according to the park service.

Religion was a central part of the Freedmen’s Colony experience. The enslaved people were educated by missionary women from northern churches and African American pastors from the AME and AME Zion churches.

Sarah Freeman stayed on Roanoke Island after the Civil War ended to help the formerly enslaved people navigate a life of freedoms. She left in 1866.

“Despite being one of the oldest teachers at age 51, Sarah Freeman’s remarkable dedication during her time as a teacher at the Freedmen’s Colony of Roanoke Island distinguished her as a resilient and industrious woman. Even when she was stricken with malarial fever and confined to her bed for a period, Freeman persisted in her unwavering efforts, alongside her daughter, to tirelessly distribute food and clothing to the formerly enslaved individuals on the island,” the park service says on the website.

The federal government broke their promises to the people who had come to all Freedmen’s Colonies.

“This colony, similar to others established by the Union army, gave African Americans their first tastes of independence and freedom. However, like other sites, it was short-lived and soon faded from the pages of history,” states the park service website.

Although the government had promised land and farming equipment to the residents of the Freedmen’s Colony, with Andrew Johnson as president, those promises were withdrawn and support for all Freedmen’s Colonies severely curtailed. By 1867 the Roanoke Colony was disbanded.

Update Feb. 5: The Fort Raleigh National Historic Site shoreline stabilization public meeting has been rescheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 12. The comment period was extended to Feb. 21 because of the weather-related meeting postponement.

Update 8:45 a.m. Jan. 23: National Park Service officials announced Wednesday night that the shoreline erosion public meeting, originally scheduled for Thursday has been postponed because of hazardous weather conditions. A new date will be announced.

Original post:

For the first time in close to 50 years, National Park Service officials are looking to stabilize the eroding shoreline at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site that, if not addressed, could jeopardize the cultural and natural resources stewards of the 355-acre site in Manteo aim to protect.

Park service staff are considering three different structures to protect the about a mile of shoreline and invite the public to share their thoughts through Feb. 7.

Established in 1941 on the north end of Roanoke Island where the Albemarle, Croatan and Roanoke sounds converge, Fort Raleigh is the last known location of the 116 English settlers that disappeared in the late 1580s, referred to as the “Lost Colony.”

Before Sir Walter Raleigh led English expeditions to the “New World” in the late 1580s, the land was home to Carolina Algonquians. During the American Civil War in the 1860s, formerly enslaved people established the Freedmen’s Colony on the island nestled between Manns Harbor and Nags Head.

The alternatives detailed in the public scoping newsletter include a rock revetment against the shoreline escarpment with fill material to create a slope; a 5- to 10-foot-high rock berm with a 20- to 40-foot-wide base at the toe of the existing slope on the beach possibly backfilled with natural materials; or a site-specific combination of the two along the mile stretch.

Comments can be submitted electronically or by mail to: Superintendent, 1401 National Park Drive, Manteo, NC 27954. The comment period began Jan. 8. A public meeting on the project is set for 6 p.m. Thursday at the site’s visitor center, 1500 Fort Raleigh Road, Manteo.

Project documents indicate that erosion has been an issue since the park was established. Wooden groins were built in the 1940s along the shoreline, and in the 1960s, an offshore breakwater was installed.

In the late 1970s, around 1,500 feet of riprap was placed near the Dough Cemetery, which dates to the mid-19^th century and faces the Croatan Sound, and along the shoreline around the Lost Colony Waterside Theater, where “The Lost Colony” dramatization of the 1580s interaction between the Algonquian and English has been performed nearly every summer since 1947.

Mike Barber, public affairs specialist with the National Park Service, said that 1979-80 work was the last shoreline-stabilization project at the cemetery and theater, and no maintenance of existing shoreline-stabilization measures has taken place to since, as far as anyone seems to know.

“Erosion along the remaining exposed shoreline, including 4500 feet of unstable, undercut cliffs as high as 25 feet, poses a serious threat to potential archeologically significant sites and park facilities,” the scoping newsletter states. “Without action, the erosion will most likely continue, causing continued loss of park lands, vegetation, archeological resources, and ultimately park facilities such as roadways, parking areas, and buildings.”

Barber expounded that, right now, mature trees near the shoreline are falling, and potential archeological resources may be washing away without intervention.

Barber said that the Waterside Theater parking lot, Pear Pad Road and the utilities that run along it as well as the National Park Service employee housing on the southern side of the road are along segments of shoreline that have not been stabilized and are the most vulnerable.

The three alternatives were determined using data from previous related studies, evaluating existing topographic conditions, and assessing existing jurisdiction, and “A preferred alternative has not been selected to date,” he said.

He added that the environmental assessment “is being developed to analyze the impacts of each alternative to guide the selection of a preferred alternative based on environmental impacts to the historic site’s natural and cultural resources.”

An environmental assessment evaluates the potential environmental impacts of a proposed action and is required by the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

Barber said that the environmental assessment is expected to be released for public review this summer with a goal of publishing the final version before the end of the year.

Barber said that if all goes as planned, it may be several years before project work begins.

“Prior to starting a project to stabilize the shoreline, we will need to finalize — with public feedback — the environmental assessment, enter into a contract to design the stabilization based on the selected alternative, and hire a contractor to perform the stabilization work,” he said.

Michael Flynn, physical scientist for the National Park Service, explained that while they don’t have an estimate of shoreline change since the 1940s, a1972 study reported that the northern end of Roanoke Island may have receded by as much as 928 feet from 1851 until 1970, losing around 7.25 feet a year, and 158 feet from 1903 to 1971, or around 2.32 feet a year.

More recent shoreline change rate data is provided within a park service technical assistance report published in 2010. That report describes the segmentation of the shoreline that took place because of stabilization methods employed between 1950-1980, Flynn said.

The report cites a 2003 study that estimates erosion rates for unmodified bluff segments between highly modified sediment bank shorelines is as high as 21 to 23 feet a year between 1969 and 1975, which motivated the riprap placement in 1980.

Natural rates of erosion along unmodified segments are estimated to be between 2 and 3 feet a year, with more severe rates of erosion located down drift of stabilization methods, Flynn explained.

Flynn said that the park is generally planning for a foot of sea level rise in the next 30 years based on the Sea Level Rise Technical Report released in 2022. He said park officials recognize that sea level rise will increase the frequency and magnitude of flooding and storm surge, exacerbating erosion and its impacts to resources and infrastructure.  

“Specific sea level rise scenarios used for engineering designs will be selected following the completion of the (environmental assessment),” he said.

ROANOKE ISLAND — Archaeologists have unearthed artifacts that appear to confirm the site of the Algonquian village on Roanoke Island, where Native Americans shared their dinner with the first English explorers.

“This is firm evidence that this locality was Roanoac, the village of first contact,” Eric Klingelhofer, vice president for research of the nonprofit First Colony Foundation, told a small group of reporters Friday during a briefing at the excavation site. “We’ve known about the village because that’s the place where English explorers sent by Raleigh first came.”

Pointing to broken pieces of pottery laid out on a makeshift table — a sample of the finds — the veteran archaeologist explained that the sherds came from Algonquian Colington ware and burnished ware pottery, both found during a recent excavation of the 16^th century strata. 

“Now that’s not the full story,” Klingelhofer added with a sly grin as he reached for small plastic bag. ‘’We found something else.”

He then gently pulled out a thread of copper that was bent into a ring shape, and was buried about 3 feet down in the top layer. Copper was much sought-after by Natives in the Southeast, but it was rare in the region and was nearly all acquired through trade.

“I was extremely pleased because I knew what it meant,” said Klingelhofer, referring to English contact. As he spoke, the waters of Roanoke Sound could be heard lapping at the shoreline behind the dig site, hidden by lush trees and bushes at the privately owned Elizabethan Gardens adjacent to Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.

Copper was a known currency for the first generation of American colonization, Klingelhofer said, adding that the copper strand most likely was a trade item that may have been worn by a Native as a ring. 

“There’s no other reason it would be here,” he said. “It must have come from the colonists.”

The Foundation team has asked conservators at Jamestown to analyze the copper, he said.

English explorers Phillip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe visited Roanoac in 1584 as part of a reconnaissance mission planned by Sir Walter Raleigh. The men were welcomed by the Algonquians, who invited them to dine and exchanged gifts with them. The Englishmen later described Roanoac as having nine cedar houses fortified in a round of “sharp trees.”

The following year, Ralph Lane, who was part of a larger Raleigh expedition, had been sent to Roanoke Island with about 100 soldiers to establish a fort and a settlement. Lane abandoned the island in 1586 because of hostilities — much apparently provoked by him — between the Native population and the English. Nonetheless, about 117 men, women and children from England arrived on Roanoke Island in 1587 to establish a permanent settlement. Known today as the “Lost Colony,” it disappeared without a trace and is often called the oldest mystery in American history.

Founded in 2003 by Klingelhofer and other professional archaeologists, the First Colony Foundation has conducted numerous archaeological explorations in and around Fort Raleigh National Historic Site on the north end of Roanoke Island, which is where the Lost Colony settlement is likely to have been built, as well as sites in Bertie County at the headwaters of the Albemarle Sound where, artifacts show, a small number of colonists likely had fled.

Findings over the years from Foundation digs have ranged from remnants of early wells, sherds from olive jars and pottery, a Cashie-type Indian pot, tobacco pipes, French ceramic flasks, glass trade beads, and an entire necklace of cut diamond-shaped copper sheets that the team believes may have been presented to a Roanoac noble. Advancements with remote-sensing technology have enabled First Colony researchers to eliminate some sites while homing in on other areas.

Klingelhofer and Foundation Co-Vice President Nick Luccketti had been part of late archaeologist Ivor Noel Hume’s Virginia Company Foundation team in the 1990s that determined that an area presumed to be associated with the reconstructed “Fort Raleigh” earthworks was instead the 1585-1586 workshop used by scientist Thomas Harriot and the metallurgist Joachim Gans — a notable discovery.

Further tests revealed evidence nearby of charcoal making and a brick kiln and led to other digs to the north and west that found 16th century artifacts. The work with Hume directly influenced establishing the First Colony group to create a partnership agreement with the National Park Service so that Elizabethan-era explorations could continue.

Although the Foundation, which includes academics and historians with expertise in precolonial and early colonial American activity and Native American culture, would welcome finding evidence of the Lost Colony, its focus has always been the broader story of the 1584-1590 Roanoke Voyages, which served as the playbook for English colonization and ultimately, for what became America.

Klingelhofer said that the team is up against time, as increased shoreline erosion consumes places to explore, and storms reconfigure potential historic areas.

Going back as far as the Great Chesapeake Hurricane in 1769, sand had buried the 16^th century site where archaeologists have recently dug. So far, Klingelhofer said, about 100 feet of shoreline has been lost on the north end of Roanoke Island, and water in the Albemarle Sound is about 3 feet higher than it was in the 1580s.

For the time being, he said, work on Roanoke Island is done. Meanwhile, he said he was looking forward to publication in November of a book detailing archaeology and historic research done by the Foundation and its predecessors, “Excavating the Lost Colony Mystery, The Map, the Search, the Discovery,” which is edited by Klingelhofer.

But the team plans to resume explorations soon at other sites in and around Fort Raleigh and Bertie County. They will also expand beyond the Native American village excavation to see how far it goes, now that the location has been nailed down to their satisfaction.

“So it’s been a good little dig,” Klingelhofer said. “We are very happy to bring our search for Roanoac to a conclusion.”