Site 44JC802, occupied by English colonists from ca. 1630-50, overlooks an 85' bluff in James City County at Kingsmill Neck. Historical records pinpointed George Sandys, Jamestown's inaugural resident treasurer from 1621-25, as the first documented land owner of this tract. Archaeologists under the direction of the Preservation Virginia (formerly APVA Preservation Virginia) Jamestown Rediscovery project dubbed 44JC802 the "Sandys site" and fully excavated it during the 1990s.



The site's 40,000+ artifacts and 25 features revealed significant insights into everyday life in Jamestown's hinterland. Evidence of substantial self-armament, isolated luxuries, hunting, farming, trade with the indigenous population, and possible industrial enterprises coalesced to form a complex portrait of diverse and burgeoning activities by the site's inhabitants, all the while under the ominous threat of lethal intercultural conflict. The colonists experienced times of awkward growth as Jamestown's hinterland transformed from a frontier settlement into the beginnings of Colonial America.

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