Existing comment:
The Barracks
"a homely thing, like a barn"
-- John Smith
Like this experimental frame structure before you, most buildings found at James Fort were of earthfast or post-in-ground construction.
Main structural posts were seated directly in the ground without the use of footings. Once the building disappeared, rotted posts and postholes remained. Based on the tell-tale patterns of these postholes, it is likely that the early structures were constructed in a style know as "Mud and Stud," a way of building well recorded in 17th-century documentary sources and in centuries-old standing buildings in Lincolnshire.
This building had a cellar, which was the first major archaeological feature from the fort period to be identified by the Jamestown Rediscovery project. The cellar became a trash pit once the building above it fell into disrepair. Through careful excavation and water screening of the cellar fill, many thousands of late 16th- and early 17th-century artifacts were retrieved. |