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Fossils reveal oldest tombstone in the US came from Belgium
A new study has found that the oldest known tombstone in the United States originated in Belgium, and it was tiny amoeba fossils in the stone that showed researchers the way. The black limestone slab marked the grave of a knight who died in 1627 in Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America.
The heavy slab of carved black limestone was originally placed in the floor of the second church in Jamestown (built in 1617). It was moved in the 1640s to the southern entrance area during a reconstruction of the church that destroyed its original location. It was rediscovered in 1901 and relocated to a new church built in 1906.
The tombstone has depressions where its original brass inlays used to be. Historians think the brasses may have been removed or destroyed when the church was burned during Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676. The shapes of the depressions make it clear what the brass inlays were: a shield (probably the family crest) in the upper right, a scroll across from that and in the center a man with sword and shield standing on a rectangular pedestal that was likely engraved with the funerary inscription. That armed figure is what marked the deceased as a knight.
Historians found only two knights who died in Jamestown in the 1600s, which narrowed down the identity of the tomb’s occupant to either Sir Thomas West (d. 1618), the colony’s first resident governor, or his successor as governor, Sir George Yeardley (d. 1627). There are no references in historical records to indicate the former might be the deceased. There is a strong indicator that the latter is. Sir George’s step-grandson, Adam Thorowgood II, requested in his will in the 1680s that he be given a black “marble” tombstone engraved with the crest of Sir George Yeardley and containing the same inscription found on “the broken tomb,” indicating the tombstone was already damaged in the 17th century.
Fine-grained and capable of being polished to a high gloss, black limestone was the preferred material for the tombstones of the wealthy colonists of Chesapeake Bay in the 17th century. It is often called “marble” because of its polish and fine, homogeneous composition, but in this case, its not being marble was the key to identifying its provenance. The research term used fossils trapped in the limestone to trace its origin, and microfossils are usually destroyed by the heat and pressure that create marble whereas they are preserved in limestone.
Researchers identified the microfossils from two fragments taken from the bottom of the tombstone. The limestone fragments less one centimeter square and half a centimeter thick where sliced into thin sections and photographed in high resolution. The images were then sent to specialists to identify the microfossils.
Six species of single-celled amoeboid fossils were identified: Endothyra sp., Omphalotis minima, Omphalotis sp., Globoendothyra sp., Paraarchaediscus angulatus, and P. concavus. The results indicate the source rock came from Europe, specifically either Ireland or Belgium, and cannot have come from anywhere in North America. Fragments from two other black limestone tombstones from the graveyard outside the Jamestown Memorial Church, one from 1697, one from 1713, were also sectioned and also found to have come from Belgium.
Historical evidence suggests Belgium is the likely source, as Belgium has been the most common source of the Lower Carboniferous “black” marble for centuries, from Roman times through to the present. It was particularly popular among the wealthy in England during Yeardley’s life.
He and other Virginian colonists would have been very aware of the latest fashions in England and would likely try to replicate them in the colonies.
The study has been published in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology and can be read in its entirety here.
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