Happy Birthday, Jamestown

Today is the 400th anniversary of the founding of the colony of Jamestown, Virginia.

Apparently it is also the 400th anniversary of arrival of the earthworm and the honey bee. I recently heard this piece on NPR. In the interview, Charles Mann, discusses some of the effects of the English settlement in Jamestown. Apparently, the glaciers during the last ice age had eliminated all the local earthworms. I can imagine it would be pretty hard to be a worm under a mile of ice. Anyway, a forest without worms has a much thicker layer of leaf litter, which ends up affecting the understory composition of the forest. The introduction of earthworms from the European ships had a major impact on the forest ecosystem. I’m curious how the native American regime of controlled burns affected the leaf litter decomposition?

Also, the introduction of the European honey bee, brought for honey production, enabled the establishment of many crops that rely on pollination, especially fruit trees. On a related note, I’ve also been following the recent development of Colony Collapse Disorder, a phenomenon where bee colonies have be mysteriously disappearing since the fall of 2006.

Charles Mann also has a related article appearing in the National Geographic Magazine. He goes into a little more detail in this article. I’m looking forward to checking out the print magazine sometime. I imagine I can find someone with a copy.

I’ve also been reading Karen Ordahl Kupperman’s The Jamestown Project. She provides a well-written account of the settling of Jamestown. I’m about half-way through right now. She has been emphasizing the previous experience many of the folks involved in the Jamestown colonies experience in the rest of the world, particularly with the Ottoman empire, Africa, the West Indies, and even South America. The Native Americans it turns out had considerable experience with Europeans before Jamestown as well. She also spends considerable time on the cultural milieu that prevaded England and Europe during this time. I think she’ll go on to detail the actual details of the colony and what worked and what didn’t work. Apparently, the English were able to develop a successful model of colonization in Jamestown that they were then able to apply in other places (i.e. Plymouth). So far, it is a very interesting read.

For a contemporary native perspective on the 400th anniversary of “Old Dominion”, check out this article from Indian Country.