Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 3, 1993                   TAG: 9311030143
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

FIRST VA. STATEHOUSE? NO, IT WAS JUST A HOME

The three row houses were identified as the statehouse by researchers in the early 1900s. Archaeologists in the 1950s cast some doubt on that identification, said Audrey Horning-Kessler, a Colonial Williamsburg archaeologist.

As archaeologists dug this summer to investigate evidence the building may have had a fourth section, Williamsburg historian Martha McCartney found records showing that families lived there.

The row houses probably were built to take advantage of government incentives to build with brick. The suspected fourth section turned out to be a cellar dug in preparation for an addition that never was built, Horning-Kessler said.

Researchers hope to compile a detailed, decade-by-decade record of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, in time for the 400th anniversary of its founding in 2007.

In their work this summer, archaeologists used radar, electric currents and other remote The row houses probably were built to take advantage of government incentives to build with brick. sensing devices to locate the remains of Colonial structures and landscape features without digging.

They also began the collection and analysis of botanical evidence, including seeds, pollen and silicon impressions of ancient plant cells to create a record of plant life on the island as far back as 12,000 years.

The archaeological dig, conducted by scientists and students from Colonial Williamsburg and the College of William and Mary, focused this summer on the island's town site near the National Park Service visitors center.