Colonial Jamestown, assailed by climate change, is facing disaster

Chronic flooding lands 400-year-old Virginia site on the endangered list

By Michael E. Ruane
Today at 5:10 a.m. EDT

JAMESTOWN, Va. — The dig site where archaeologist Sean Romo has just found the ancient fragment of armor is surrounded by a double layer of green sandbags to keep out water.

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The 400-year-old colonial site here is losing its battle with climate change, experts say, and Wednesday the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed it on a list of the country’s most endangered historical places.

“Jamestown is a world-class archaeological site and a place of national and international significance,” said James Horn, president of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation, the nonprofit that conducts archaeology and cares for the original settlement site. (The trust listing does not include the adjacent National Park Service Jamestown location.)

The threat to the site of one of the nation’s “very first cultural hubs … brings home the challenges that climate change pose to our entire society,” he said.

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