Digital Scholarship and Initiatives

East Carolina University students, directed by David S. Phelps (head of East Carolina University's archaeological laboratory), spent spring break on the Outer Banks, investigating two sites (in Buxton and in Frisco).  The Buxton site was the capital village of the Croatan Indians, who lived on the southern end of Hatteras and northern end of Ocracoke from 1000-1700 A.D.  The site will show researchers how the Croatans lived in the 1500s.  Phelps notes that the Buxton site corresponds to the location marked on John White's 1585 map as the Croatan capital.  Croatan Indians were the people encountered by John White's colony and, it is presumed, are the people the Lost Colonists left Roanoke Island and intermingled with.  A Web page created by Nancy Cowal, Cape Hatteras School's Media Coordinator and a participant in the dig, shows some photographs of the site and some items found (www.outer-banks.com/hatteras-school/Dig.html).

Note:  Dr. Phelps, now retired from East Carolina, continues to do work at the Buxton site and was there as recently as April 1999.  He is planning a popular monograph on the site and on his research.