Archaelogists unearthed the remains of a boy experts believe was about 15 years old, and arrived in the Chesapeake region from Europe in 1634 as one of the first permanent white settlers in America. He was found just outside what were once the walls of a fort those settlers made.
Article at The Washington Post.
His leg was broken, and "[h]is right arm was pulled awkwardly across his chest. And his left hand was clenched in a fist."
"The position of his right arm was a puzzle, [Kari Bruwelheide, a biological anthropologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History] said. Perhaps he had died facedown with the arm underneath his chest, and whoever buried him didn't, or couldn't, move the arm back to a normal position.
"The smaller bone in his lower right leg, the fibula, was broken. And the larger bone, the tibia, looked cracked or broken, she pointed out.
"He probably broke his leg shortly before he died, although that would not have killed him unless it became infected, Bruwelheide said."
Because he was buried without a coffin, and wasn't even wrapped in a shroud, Bruwelheide believes he had no family, and possibly arrived as a ship's cabin boy or an indentured servant.
