Roanoke Colony Mystery Solved Through Pottery?

An exciting development in this 450 year old American mystery

A team of archaeologists may have solved the mystery of the Roanoke Colony through pottery shards.

In 2007, archaeologist Nicholas Luccketti of the James River institute for archaeology, was assessing artifacts found in the 1000-acre Bal Gra plantation in North Carolina.

The survey determined that the area was once home to an indigenous group called the Algonquians and it was in a peripheral dig site labeled “31BR246” that some curious artifacts were unearthed.

They uncovered shards of a specific type of English pottery called Border ware, which sparked excitement for a few reasons.

Firstly, the term Border ware comes from the fact that it was produced along the border between Surrey and Hampshire in the late 16th century medieval England.

It’s a distinct earthenware ceramic typically found in lead glaze colors like apple green, brown and olive.

Traditional Border ware pottery

Border ware was a dime a dozen in England but was a rare and valuable find in the Americas because of the dates. Finding this specific pottery in North America is like discovering a historical timestamp; it only appears in the earliest colonial sites before 1650.

But then the question became…what was Border ware pottery doing down in North Carolina? Did Luccketti and his team stumble upon a previously unknown English colony settlement or perhaps something even more curious?

Because here's where it gets fascinating: this dig site was just 100 miles from one of America's greatest mysteries - the Lost Colony of Roanoke, where 115 English settlers vanished without a trace in 1590, leaving behind only the cryptic word "CROATOAN" carved into a fence.

This is where the story takes a complete turn because upon closer inspection of surviving Lost Colony era maps was a hidden message that could possibly explain the Border ware, what happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke and solve one of the greatest American mysteries of all time.