Browse Items (55 total)

An Indian mother, carrying a water gourd, and her child, carrying what appears to be an English doll, pose in this watercolor by John White, the English artist who in 1585 accompanied a failed colonizing expedition to Roanoke Island in present-day…

A wife of an Indianweroance, or chief, carries a gourd while her eight-to-ten-year-old daughter waves a European rattle and holds a well-dressed doll in this colored engraving by Theodor de Bry based on a watercolor painting by John White. Adding…

Archaeologists know that steatite, or soapstone, was an important material for people living in the Late Archaic period. This illustration shows the process of pecking away the soapstone from a quarried block to produce a bowl. Trace element…

Archaeologists know that steatite, or soapstone, was an important material for people living in the Late Archaic period. This illustration shows some examples of unfinished soapstone bowls that were produced in the central Piedmont. Finished bowls…

These cylindrical shell beads were found at a Late Woodland site in Roanoke County in the Blue Ridge region of west-central Virginia. Piedmont, Blue Ridge, and Shenandoah Valley groups obtained beads like these through trade with coastal groups. …

These shell beads were found at a Late Woodland site in Roanoke County in the Blue Ridge region of west-central Virginia. They are made from the Marginella genus of marine mollusks. Piedmont, Blue Ridge, and Shenandoah Valley groups obtained beads…

These cylindrical shell beads were found at a Late Woodland site in Roanoke County in the Blue Ridge region of west-central Virginia. They were made from purple-and-white Quahog clam shells like the one below them. Shell beads with this purple…

Chemical analysis has confirmed that the ore used to make this rolled copper pendant was pure Native ore sourced from Virginia. Virginia Indians produced and traded copper items centuries before Europeans introduced their variety of copper to the…

These shell beads were found at an Early Historic period site in Montgomery County in Southwestern Virginia. They are made from the Marginella genus of marine molluscs. Shell beads were valuable in Virginia Indian exchange systems long before the…

These traded glass beads come from an Early Historic period site in Montgomery County, southwestern Virginia. Glass beads were introduced by Europeans into Native American exchange systems, which had involved trade in shell beads since the Late…