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For more than 400 years, the mystery of how 118 colonists just up and disappeared from Roanoke Island in what is now North Carolina has stumped historians and archaeologists. Today, amateur archaeologists claim to have discovered proof of what actually happened to the missing colony members.
According to the history books, in 1587 Governor John White and a group of colonists established an outpost in North America on Roanoke Island. White would later return to England to acquire more supplies. Unfortunately, the Anglo-Spanish War caused him to have to delay his return to Roanoke until 1590. When he arrived, the settlement was completely abandoned. The only clue left behind was the word “CROATOAN” that was carved into the palisade. This was assumed to mean that the settlers had moved to Croatoan Island, now known as Hatteras Island, 50 miles to the south. Whether they actually went or made it there is a mystery to this day.
Now, the President of the Croatoan Archaeological Society, Scott Dawson, and Mark Horton, an archaeology professor at the UK’s Royal Agricultural University, claim to have solved the 435-year-old mystery of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. They claim that after more than a decade of digging near Buxton on Hatteras Island they have found evidence that the settlers did actually make it there and never actually disappeared at all.
They say they have found bucket-loads hammerscale dating back to the 1500s, weapons, a metal Tudor Rose emblem of English royalty, and a European coin-like token, which are all now on display at Dawson’s Lost Colony Museum in Buxton. The hammerscale is the key, they say, because Native Americans did not perform blacksmithing at the time. Hammerscale is small metal shavings that are a byproduct of iron-forging.
“The hammerscale shows that English settlers lived among the Croatoans on Hatteras and were ultimately absorbed into their community,” Horton told the Daily Mail. “Once and for all, this smoking gun evidence answers any questions about the supposed mystery of the lost colony.”
“It’s the end of the mystery,” said Dawson. “The lost colony narrative was a marketing campaign. The primary sources are clear, and now we have empirical evidence to prove it. But, alas, it’s hard to kill a myth.”