Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset once asserted that, "The choice of a point of view is the initial act of culture" (1961:7). I believe that it is also the inaugural step in studying a culture. The Journal of the Jamestown Rediscovery Center (JJRC) is created in the hopes of creating additional perspectives on the ongoing excavations at the site of the first permanent English settlement in America. The journal provides a venue in which specialists who have worked as consultants on the Jamestown Rediscovery project will disseminate the results of their research. External analyses of the archaeology of James Fort further Jamestown Rediscovery's quest for insight into daily life at Jamestown Island in the time of European expansion by strengthening the project's ability to see significant patterns in relevant data and to determine meaningful relationships. Adopting French painter Paul Cezanne's appreciation for the position of the observer--or in this case, the scholar--the JJRC endeavors to establish an open forum to "treat the archaeology of Jamestown in terms of the cultural, the historical, the natural, all in perspective" (1978:13).

The articles in the JJRC are detailed and rigorous, sacrificing style for substance when necessary. Though the subject matter at times requires the use of technical language, the journal's studies are as explanatory and straightforward as the topics warrant. The three articles in Volume 1 detail individual analyses undertaken on materials uncovered by Jamestown Rediscovery excavations at the Fort site. The selective focus of each study produces high-resolution observations that serve as springboards for subsequent interpretive debates.

The examination by Blanton, Deitrick, and Bartels' of hafted bifaces identifies a correlation in the Jamestown Rediscovery assemblage between raw material type and failure frequencies. Locally made projectile points were usually broken whereas those of non-local origin exhibited little damage. The pattern intimates differential use, prompting consideration of intercultural exchange practices and the distinctiveness of tribal identity within the Powhatan chiefdom. How and why did the colonists acquire the unbroken foreign points? Could they be gifts from distant indigenous allies of the English?

Lapham's analysis of the Jamestown Rediscovery bead assemblage produces both expected and unexpected results. That over half of the 337 beads are blue--robin's egg, turquoise, or navy--is no surprise. The historical records repeatedly mentioned the popularity of blue beads among the indigenous populations. Lapham's regional bead comparisons, however, suggest that Jamestown's early Fort-Period beads have more in common with 16th-century Spanish finds than with those from 17th-century English sites. The formal and temporal uniqueness of Jamestown Rediscovery's bead assemblage leads to questions regarding global commerce and production practices in Venice.

The article by Owsley, Bruwelheide, and Kardash details an osteological study of two late 18th-century human skeletons uncovered in the South Churchyard area of the Fort site. The discussion employs a standardized method of burial analysis and provides insight into the lives of the exhumed individuals. The pathological evidence indicates certain daily life activities of those at post-1750 Jamestown, including horseback riding, physical labor, and pipe smoking. The authors also list the skeletal factors that form the basis of each of their conclusions.

Volume 1 is the first in a series of annual collections showcasing additional insights and perspectives of the Jamestown Rediscovery project. I wish to express my gratitude to the authors of the three articles presented here, to the JJRC's Editorial Advisory Board and Associate Editor, and to my colleagues at Jamestown Rediscovery--former and current--for their scholarship, commitment, and support. With an eye to future Journals of the Jamestown Rediscovery Center and an archaeological eye always fixed on the past, I conclude with poet Henry Austin Dobson's Paradox of Time (1913:18):



Seth Mallios
Founding Editor