42 pages • 1 hour read
Sally WalkerWritten in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland
Sally WalkerNonfiction | Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Note to Reader-Chapter 1Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Note to Reader Summary
Sally M. Walker shares her inspiration for writing the book. She explains that her fascination with the field of forensic anthropology began when she learned about how scientists use bones to uncover the stories of people from the past. Walker was captivated by the idea that bones could reveal details about individuals’ lives, health, and even cultural backgrounds.
Walker explains that an important consideration when studying human remains is how different cultures treat their dead. Ethical archaeologists take burial customs into consideration when they study human remains. Some Indigenous tribes have cultural and spiritual beliefs about the treatment of their ancestors’ remains. Those who live in the Chesapeake Bay area believe that it is disrespectful to remove skeletons from their burial place. To respect these beliefs, the book concentrates on the remains of early European settlers.
Chapter 1 Summary
On August 16, 2005, a group of scientists discovered a human skeleton in Jamestown, Virginia. The skeleton, found in a carefully excavated pit on the James River’s bank, lacked identifying artifacts but was estimated by forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley to be a 15-year-old European boy. Walker explains that this discovery is part of ongoing archaeological efforts in the Chesapeake Bay region, a historically significant area where English colonists established their first permanent settlement in North America over 400 years ago. The boy’s grave was one of over 30 discovered within James Fort, a settlement dating back to 1607. Historians and archaeologists aim to fill gaps in the historical record left by the largely illiterate early colonists. Archaeologists study artifacts and human remains to reconstruct past lives and events. Forensic anthropology, which involves analyzing skeletons for clues about life and death, is crucial in this effort.
Jamestown’s settlers, driven by the pursuit of wealth, built the fort and expanded the settlement quickly. However, by the 1630s, all mention of James Fort vanished from historical records. For many years, it was believed the James River had eroded the fort’s remains. This belief was upended in 1994 by the Jamestown Rediscovery Project and William Kelso, who hypothesized the fort’s location based on historical documents and oral traditions. Kelso and his team uncovered the fort’s remains about a half-mile west of previous excavation sites.
The rediscovery of James Fort involved meticulous excavation techniques. Archaeologists used a grid system to map the area and carefully excavated the soil, finding tens of thousands of 17th-century artifacts and soil stains that matched historical descriptions of the fort’s walls. The most compelling evidence came from soil stains indicating the presence of palisade walls, which matched historical descriptions of the fort’s triangular shape. Within the fort’s walls, the team found more than 30 graves, revealing the high mortality rate among the early settlers due to disease, starvation, and conflicts with Indigenous Americans. An unmarked cemetery outside the fort contained over 80 graves, further evidencing the settlers’ struggles, particularly during the “Starving Time” in 1609 and 1610, when many colonists perished.
Archaeologists identify unmarked graves by looking for soil stains, which appear as different-colored areas in the subsoil. These stains result from the backfilled soil of the grave shaft, which mixes the excavated layers’ soil and creates a distinct color compared to the surrounding undisturbed soil. When archaeologists uncover a stain approximately six feet long and two feet wide, they become confident they have found a burial site. The excavation process involves carefully scraping the soil, documenting the stain, and sifting through the soil to find any artifacts that might date the grave.
The excavations also revealed other features, such as floors, brick fireplaces, trash pits, and wells, which supported the idea that the archaeologists had discovered James Fort. The discovery of these graves provides insights into the early colonial experience. Forensic anthropologists like Owsley can determine the age, sex, and health of the individuals, shedding light on their lives and deaths. The teenage boy’s grave, labeled JR1225, helps piece together the story of Jamestown’s settlers, offering a glimpse into their lives.
Note to Reader-Chapter 1 Analysis
From the very beginning, Walker’s style blends personal anecdote with scientific curiosity. Walker details her background in archaeology and her experiences on excavations to establish her credibility and set the tone for the scientific exploration that follows. At the same time, this autobiographical information serves to humanize the scientific endeavor, laying the groundwork for the personal stories that follow. Walker also incorporates literary devices more common to fiction, such as metonymy (the substitution of one related thing for another); for example, her description of the South Carolina cemetery, with its unmarked graves and subtle soil depressions, typifies the quiet, often overlooked remnants of past lives. This approach speaks to Walker’s project of making the scientific process of archaeology relatable and emotionally resonant. Likewise, Walker repeats the questions “Who were these people? How had they lived?” three times (5). The emphasis on these two questions sets the tone for the book as more than just a scientific investigation: It is an investigation into the Daily Lives of American Colonists. Though she will go into detail about the processes that scientists use in their excavations, it is in the service of reconstructing the narrative of real humans’ lives.
Walker’s note to the reader therefore serves as a pitch about why they should read the book; it avoids diving into any of the scientific details to avoid alienating prospective readers. It also clarifies the parameters of the work to anticipate potential criticisms. Walker is careful to specify her reasons for leaving out the stories of Indigenous peoples. She includes this information to acknowledge their significance in early American history; to ignore the presence of Indigenous remains might be seen as disregarding their importance, but Walker argues that it is actually a sign of respect.
Chapter 1 situates the reader in the historical context of Jamestown, providing background on the settlement’s establishment and its significance as the first permanent English colony in North America. Walker’s mention of the high mortality rate among early settlers and the arrival of the first Africans in 1619 situates specific archaeological findings with reference to broader historical events—part of Walker’s emphasis on Connecting the Historical Record to Archaeological Evidence. She uses the written record to introduce the context, preparing the reader to appreciate the insights gained from the physical evidence unearthed by archaeologists. After the written record, Walker begins to discuss the archaeological evidence, including detailed descriptions of the artifacts and soil features uncovered at the Jamestown site and linking these findings to historical events. For example, the circular stains in the soil that marked the remains of the fort’s palisade walls helped confirm the fort’s location.
This chapter is unusual compared to the other chapters because it focuses on the broader history of the region instead of one person’s life story. Doing so contextualizes the individual stories uncovered through excavation. Since the book is aimed at a younger audience, Walker does not assume that her readers are familiar with the details of colonial America. However, she does not go into too much detail about the history of the colonies as a whole, instead keeping her focus on the Chesapeake Bay area, beginning with Jamestown. By limiting her focus to the context most relevant to the book’s subject matter, Walker seeks to avoid overwhelming readers.
In Chapter 1, Walker establishes the pattern of ending a chapter on a cliffhanger—another literary technique. After giving the historical background and information about where the excavation of the fort began, she introduces a new piece of evidence to pique the reader’s interest. Instead of saying that the discovery team found something, she says that they were going to “meet” JR1225B. Ending the chapter here implies there is more to learn about the unfolding discoveries. The word choice also underscores the book’s humanistic impulse: One could “find” an object, but “meeting” is reserved for encountering people.
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