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Digging, measuring, recording - all in a day's dig for Pat Horn (left), Billy Flint, and Gary Gossett

And the ornaments. Two large necklaces around the neck. One of shell beads and copper beads; the second with larger beads, all made of ocean conch shell. Elbow bracelets of conch shell as well.

Says Bates, "Copper, in a form usable to these prehistoric people, does not naturally occur in Charlotte County or Halifax County, and these are very finely made pieces of ornament." He adds, "The cold-hammered copper beads and large conch shell beads suggest a people in the cross-roads of trade. Copper beads would have been valued as modern people value diamonds. The closest source for the large conch shell beads would have been down the Staunton River to Albemarle Sound on the coast of North Carolina."

By the prehistoric man's ankles are turtle shells and water-worn quartz pebbles. According to Bates, these would have been rattles: "The possibility of a prehistoric North American shaman is a rational hypothesis. Certainly, he was a person of wealth and importance."

Bates identifies this male, along with the earlier remains, as a member of the Saponi tribe of the Occoneechee Indians. Thus the students' name for him - Occoneechi Ned. Historically, this tribe left their village and arrived at Occoneechee Island in time to be slaughtered in Bacon's Rebellion of 1676. Bates also explains that using a midden or landfill, where the soil was already loosened, for a grave was common since these people had no steel tools for digging.

Graduate student Phil Adams draws to scale every inch of the remains. Students record and photograph every aspect of the grave. In accordance with the laws of Virginia, nothing is disturbed, nothing is taken out.

News of the grave circulates and John Blackfeather Jeffries from Henderson, North Carolina, a current chief of the Occoneechee, visits the site and reconsecrates the remains.

It's the end of Archeological Field School Summer '99, and students re-cover Occoneechi Ned.

Back to the present

Advanced student Jenny McGinty (foreground right) accepts PR duties and shows artifacts to middle schoolers touring the Staunton River site.

He was quite a find. Delegate Ted Bennet of the 60th District, director of Virginia State Parks Joe Elton and manager of Staunton River Battlefield and Staunton River State Parks Tim Vest visited the site. Groups of middle schoolers and several reporters came to see as well. Virginia State Parks has extended its contract with the Longwood Archeological Field School for another year, with the possibility of an additional four, in recognition of the importance of this site.

Field School 2000 begins May 22. Students will focus on a smaller, but deeper, area. Bates considers this the "best approach to getting everything excavated."

Summing up the Field School experience, Dr. Jim Jordan, Longwood professor of anthropology, says, "This is research -- the basic creation of knowledge that did not exist until a week ago."

It is also meticulous, unforgiving work. Says Jordan, " You're burning your book with every scrape of the trowel."

The chapter "Occoneechi Ned" is now closed. As for the site, according to Bates, "the significance of it is only now beginning to come clear."

Call of the CARRIBEAN via London Bates and ten Longwood College students went on to the second 1999 Field School session on the island of Tortola in the Virgin Islands. Since 1996 Longwood has partnered with the University of London Institute of Archeology on the only full-scale excavation in the British Virgin Islands. The Tortola site boasts an abundance of pottery. Turtles, a significant source of food, figure prominently in elaborate pottery adornments. Samples date back to 1000 to 1500 A.D. Results from 1999 suggest a much earlier occupation of perhaps 1500 B.C. Research into this 3500 year old community can contribute significantly to understanding prehistory in this little-known region of the world. Dr. Peter Drewett of the University of London is co-director, with Bates, of the dig. Drewett is one of only a hand full of experts in Carribean archeology. The University of London has one of the top three schools of archeology in the world. As a Ph.D. candidate at the Institute, Bates lauds its "international reputation, dynamite research, and superior research facilities." Thanks to this Longwood-University of London collaboration, three recent Longwood graduates - Phil Adams, Andy Banyasz, and Nic Smith - are now University of London graduate students as well.