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Review of America Unearthed S01E07: "Mystery of Roanoke"

2/2/2013

59 Comments

 
Before we start discussing America Unearthed S01E07 “Mystery of Roanoke,” I want to direct your attention to my blog post from the other day revealing the finances and more than $600,000 initial budget for America Unearthed. The next time an alternative theorist complains that “scientists” are “suppressing” the truth in order to preserve their government funding and tenure-track jobs, remind them that almost no scientist makes nearly as much cash as “alternative” TV presenters (who are also taking government cash). Dozens of people owe their jobs to each alternative show, and with the hundreds of thousands of dollars invested into the series, telling untruths about American history is a hugely profitable business.

Let me begin by stating upfront that I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in the lost colony of Roanoke, the group of 118 colonists who disappeared from the first English settlement in Virginia sometime between 1587 and 1590, leaving behind only the carved word “Croatoan” on a tree. This occurred in the Early Modern period, well after the European discovery of America, so it’s not anything that has any impact on the “hidden” history of America, unless aliens abducted them or something. So it was an uphill battle for me to pay attention to this fairly padded hour of television, at least until Wolter started getting pissed off. Then, for a few minutes, it got good.

We open with Scott Wolter entering pushpins into a map of America, connected by red thread, like the sort of charts obsessed police detectives (or serial killers) use on forensic crime shows, or the crazy CIA woman on Homeland. We focus in on a Polaroid (who has those?) with the word “murder” written in black permanent marker and then cut to the opening credits. (No murder will be discussed in the hour, so this is all just for show.)

The opening graphics tell us that the lost colony of Roanoke is “America’s oldest cold case,” further drawing parallels to crime scene procedurals.

Wolter shows us the “Dare Stones,” some rocks allegedly carved by a colonist named Eleanor Dare with messages about the lost colony’s fate. Found between 1937 and 1940 in three locations along a single route between Roanoke and Atlanta, scholars quickly determined they were hoaxes, which America Unearthed actually mentions since this cannot be denied. Wolter, of course, wants the stones to be authentic. I’ll be honest: I couldn’t possibly care less about this. Even if the stones are authentic, it changes nothing about the history of America and would provide at most a tiny footnote to the story of European colonization.

However, in the interest of completion, here’s what America Unearthed purposely left out:

The first stone, well-weathered, was apparently the gravestone of Ananias and Virginia Dare. If there is any truth to the stones, this one, found near the lost colony, is possibly the only authentic stone. Geologists of the time determined it was 400 years old, and some scholars continue to believe it is an authentic sixteenth century artifact. In 1937, historian Dr. Haywood Pearce deciphered its inscription and declared it genuine. He offered a reward for more stones, paying out up to $1,200 (almost $20,000 in today’s dollars) per stone. Suddenly, stones flooded in from South Carolina and Georgia, all found by just four people. I wonder why.

According to a 1941 Saturday Evening Post analysis of the stones, which Wolter fails to discuss, a single person found two of the stones in two separate states! One was even buried near the man’s own house! The Post discovered that all four individuals who “independently” found the Dare Stones were known criminals who all knew one another, and at least one had approached Cecil B. DeMille about turning the stones’ story into a movie. Experts discovered that some of the carvings appeared quite recent, and some of the words used on the stones did not match forms known from the 1590s. (Elizabethan English could easily be faked since the works of Shakespeare were available in any public library.)

Pearce, for his part, lashed out like modern alternative theorists, threatening to sue the Post for revealing the hoax. After the Post story, one of the original “discoverers” of the stones, William Eberhart, called the professor he had fooled into accepting the Dare Stones, the same Haywood Pearce, in 1937 to report a new find, a large carved stone head. Even the credulous professor recognized the stone as a fake, made with hammers and colored with purple vegetable die. Eberhart later confessed to participating in a hoax and for accepting payment for the hoaxing, as well as admitting to blackmailing Pearce by threatening to reveal the Dare Stone hoax if he wasn’t paid off. He later denied making these sworn and witnessed statements.

The whole story is laid out here (part 1, part 2), with a quote from Jim Southerland, who appears in this episode of America Unearthed. He believes the first stone is possibly genuine, which is a reasonable if not entirely proven possibility.

None of this made the show, of course, because it undermines Wolter’s thesis.

Wolter examines this first of the Dare Stones and says that the geological evidence suggests their authenticity. Sadly, his evidence is once again the same microscopic analysis that has led him astray on other artifacts. I’m not sure Wolter is truly able to distinguish between 300 years’ weathering and 100 or 30. He does not, for example, compare the weathering to that observed on rocks in the locales where the stones were found, and he is well aware that the amount of weathering is highly dependent on local conditions. He does not examine the later Dare Stones with the same care, nor does he report whether there are differences, as the clear evidence of hoaxing indicates that there would be.

He makes a dumb conclusion that the differences in rock type between the various groups of Dare Stones suggest authenticity because it would mean they were carved in situ rather than all at once. One might equally well suggest that the hoaxer(s) simply carved them as he or they traveled from Roanoke to Georgia, or at locations of convenience where they lived and worked.

What follows is a truly extraordinary scene.

Wolter goes to meet author Scott Dawson, a local innkeeper with a bachelor's in psychology who runs a museum on Hatteras (formerly Croatoan) island. Dawson tries to patiently explain to him all of the archaeological evidence for English occupation at Croatoan Island and what happened to the colony after they abandoned Roanoke for Croatoan Island and vanished. (A 1998 archaeological investigation found a signet ring apparently belonging to one of the colonists on the island, among other evidence.) Dawson waves his hand over the evidence and explained that all the evidence supports the Croatoan Island theory except for the Dare Stones, so either the Dare Stones are real and every piece of evidence ever collected is wrong, or the evidence is right and the Dare Stones are a hoax. Wolter, visibly agitated, insists on another explanation. The colony simply split up into competing tribes, like on Survivor!

“All of that is just speculation,” Dawson reminds Wolter.

“The only thing I can do is testify as to factual evidence,” Wolter says, again quite agitated, stating that the standard of proof should be what’s allowable in “a court of law.” “When the facts stand in the way of speculation, then the facts win,” he says. Claims of a hoax are just that, claims, supported by appeals to “romanticism.” Wolter may want to dismiss the “romanticism” of the 1930s as irrelevant, but his show has purposely left out the “factual” evidence collected in 1941 that the stones were a recent hoax, including the linguistic problems, the evidence of exactly who hoaxed the stones and how, the continued hoaxing after exposure, and Eberhart’s confession. 

This confrontation was so upsetting that Wolter calls his wife (!) on camera (!!) to complain about the close-minded attitude of Scott Dawson for refusing to agree with Wolter’s speculations. Wolter insists that Dawson was blind to the “geological” evidence, but as we saw earlier, Wolter never conclusively dated the stones, merely suggesting that they “looked” weathered and old. (Nor does he consider that the first stone may be genuine while the others could be fake; he considers them all of a piece.) To date them, as he well knows, they’d need to be compared to stones in the locations where they were found to evaluate the weathering involved. 

So, to recap: Wolter, on sketchy evidence, closed himself off to all possibly explanations except legitimacy for all the stones and is upset that someone else evaluated the evidence and has a conclusion that differs from his own.

Dr. Stephanie Pratt, art historian, shows us an old map of Virginia drawn by its colonial governor, John White, c. 1585-1590. (It’s on Wikipedia, so it’s not exactly hidden history.) Recently, it was discovered that the map features a hidden four-pointed splotch that is similar to the outline of the fortification used at Fort Raleigh beneath a patch placed on the map at the time of its creation. I’m not really sure what this is meant to prove, other than the possibility that there was once an English fort farther inland than originally suggested. Wolter believes this means that the colonists moved inland rather than south to Croatoan, and he suggests this was part of a conspiracy by Sir Walter Raleigh. I suppose this is possible, but it’s really irrelevant to the Dare Stones question since the colonist could not have built a large defensive earthwork given the terrible conditions described by the Dare Stones.

The map has been repaired, and the fort symbol was covered up, either because the fort ceased to exist, was never built, or because it was drawn on the map in the wrong place.

Next, Wolter goes to England to learn that early colonists came to America to find sassafras, believed to be a cure for syphilis. Wolter suggests that finding a place that matches evidence from the map of the inland fort, conforms to the narrative of the Dare Stones, and features sassafras, will give us the lost colony of Roanoke. This place is Scotch Hall Preserve golf course.

If I understand correctly, the golf course is built atop the place the map indicated a fort once stood. A golf course spokesman tells Wolter that no evidence of a fort was found during construction of the course. Wolter concludes that the fort was planned but never existed. Despite this, he’s thrilled to find out that the first Dare Stone was found near the golf course, suggesting to Wolter that “my theory is right.” I fail to see how the fact that the fort did not exist somehow confirms that the colonists escaped to its location. The logic seems to be that Eleanor Dare hoped that her father, John White, would come to the planned fort site in search of her when he returned to build the fort. This is possible, I suppose, and if the first Dare Stone is authentic, perhaps more than possible. But the lack of any evidence of English occupation other than the Dare Stone is troubling.

Wolter seems to think he found the lost colony, though he has no bodies. He also finally recognizes that finding rocks in situ is important for evaluating whether the Dare Stones are legitimate; however, he stops after finding the same type of quartzite in Virginia. (Do the other states not count?) He does not check to see how and whether such stones were weathered to learn about the weathering in the area in order to evaluate how long the Dare inscriptions had been exposed, or whether their weathering was consistent with these rocks. Wolter may claim the stones’ inscriptions look old to him, but in 1941, the experts consulted by the Post thought they seemed fairly recent (except, perhaps, for the first). Surely, Wolter ought to have evaluated the un-carved stones before declaring the Dare Stones real since geology, like any “hard” science, requires controls.

So, overall, there is perhaps a kernel of truth buried in this episode, if the first Dare Stone really is what it claims to be (which is, of course, not certain), but this episdoe's lack of critical thinking and incomplete (to the point of being deceptive) presentation of the facts surrounding the stones' discovery makes this a case far from proved.

By the way, if you want to see this kind of investigation done right, in 2009 the PBS version of Time Team went to Fort Raleigh and searched for evidence of the Roanoke colony. You can watch their much more informative and serious investigation here.
59 Comments
Donna B.
2/2/2013 02:33:12 pm

Jason, the link above to the Browns Guide articles about the Dare Stones hoax didn't work. Here are the links to the two articles:

http://www.brownsguides.com/blog/weird-georgia-dare-stones-part-one-discovery/

http://www.brownsguides.com/blog/weird-georgia-dare-stones-part-2-the-hoax/

Two episodes were all I could watch before giving up, but I do love to check out your reviews!

Reply
Jason Colavito link
2/2/2013 10:33:18 pm

Thanks for catching that. I've updated the links in the blog post.

Reply
rob
3/3/2013 07:49:05 am

first of all the lost colony was not lost , they were taken in by my people, the Tuscarora / Crotan, at least the ones that did not died. The mode was survival. There was not mass communication as today, so when absorbed into different Tuscarora villages far from the main coast line they simple were not found and lived and died as natives period. I have been concise here but this is the just of it.

Reply
Lillith Avonlea
6/13/2015 06:42:39 pm

Watched America unearthed today and saw the part about the john White map. IMO the map had the fort where joihn White was proposing its location be to the English and they nixed it as they did to Jamestown people who wanted to be further upland from the tidewaters. I believe the English wanted them near the coast to be proxy 'fighters" for the Spanish if they came north seeking land. My family began its American existence in VA at the beginnings so i have been reading Jamestown histories just can't remember the specifics on the Jamestown leaders being overruled by the Brits for British motherland purposes.

John White's patch repaired map stayed in England.

Reply
Gary Fischer
2/2/2013 04:59:25 pm

My response:

The patch note map was the "white out" of the day.

Wolter insults hs guests.

Why fly to England to look at a copy of te map? The Internet can give same information.

I'm a golfer and NEVER once have I had to knock on the door of a golf course club house in daylight hours.

Wolter goes on goose chases but never grounds a goose or even knows with goose e is looking for.

I don't understand the backpack. What is in it?

The show continues to insult the audience with pre-staged interactions.


I appreciate your reviews.


Footnote: I do watch and enjoy Ancient Aliens. I focus onthereal art and ancient buildings and then make my own conclusions.

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Jason Colavito link
2/2/2013 10:31:45 pm

I guess after seven episodes the phony staging and costuming has finally worn me down and I've forgotten to note how false it is.

Wouldn't it be nice if there were shows that offered up ancient art and buildings without aliens? Surely it's possible to interest Americans in non-American antiquity without aliens.

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Jimmy
2/3/2013 06:52:56 am

Hey Jason,

Is Scott Wolter really a forensic geologist like he tells every person he meets? I thought he was a concrete structural geologist.

Jimmy
2/3/2013 07:07:28 am

sorry Jason, I just read your next blog post and that answered my question.

Jason Colavito link
2/3/2013 07:28:40 am

No need to be sorry! It seems that you had the same question I did after watching all the "crime scene" material in this episode.

Jimmy
2/3/2013 06:55:12 am

He is trying to make his backpack his gimmick. If you watch the first episode his friend mentions that backpack and Scott says something to the fact like you know I don't go anywhere without it. I'm sure it's his version of the "Indy hat"

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Gary J.
2/5/2013 02:46:55 pm

Gary F. -- I agree pretty much with what you say. However, I don't think it was the golf clubhouse, but rather either the private home of office of the course spokesman.

And I like Ancient Aliens too. They get a bit carried away, and Giorio needs to comb his hair, but there are some things that aren't easily explained (like moving the huge stones, cutting inside corners in granite, etc.). As an engineer, I just can't believe that such huge rocks were moved by men tugging on ropes (that very well might part under the strain of such a load) and rolling them on logs. At any rate, it's fun and more entertaining than most sitcoms and the endless reality shows on network television.

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Brian
1/17/2015 03:40:10 am

"As an engineer, I just can't believe that such huge rocks were moved by men tugging on ropes (that very well might part under the strain of such a load) and rolling them on logs."

Give up your day job, you're a bad engineer. Even I, with a business degreem can see many ways how it can be done, for example by using many ropes and a pully system, or by using the walking stone technique developed based off old Easter Island legends or many other ways.

Audrey link
10/27/2015 06:25:00 pm

I agree with your standings on the Wolter take re: The Dare Stones, AND your opinion of Ancient Aliens. Although not an engineer, I honed my critical thinking skills in college, and his particular styling of misleading prattle is annoying. AA however, is entertaining and Giorgio does need to comb his hair!

Richard L
1/17/2014 09:56:31 am

Wolter keeps refering to Columbis,but Columbis never made it to north america ?????

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Maggie Dawson link
2/3/2013 09:18:22 am

Hi Jason,
Your review is both accurate and fantastic!!! Thank you for this!!!
I am Scott Dawson's wife, and I can tell you that the 'Wolter Show' definitely had an agenda... and it had nothing to do with finding the truth and nothing to do with telling the truth!!! Scott and myself were very frustrated with how the show turned out, as they took 8 hours to film just Scott's interview... and they never fully allowed him to say the history/story... and cut out much of what he said. We were very proud though that even after 8 hours of filming... they were never able to trap Scott D into saying anything positive about the Dare Stones (which yes are a well-known hoax). We actually tried multiple times off camera to calmly and academically explain to Wolter why the stones were a hoax... but he was too arrogant and stupid to listen.
And FYI... the backpack has a camera and some notebooks and a long-sleeve shirt.... atleast, that is what he had in it the day he 'staged' his visit to Croatoan/ Hatteras.

One last FYI: For any one interested in seeing artifacts found on Hatteras Island by the Croatoan Archaeological Society, they are on display in the Hatteras Community Library in Hatteras Village. And you can check out our website at www.cashatteras.com.

Again, thank you Jason for this review!!!!
Sincerely,
Maggie Dawson

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Jason Colavito link
2/3/2013 12:42:37 pm

Thank you for writing, Maggie! It's always interesting to get a glimpse behind the scenes to see how the producers have manipulated interviews. I give great credit to Scott for giving an interview that even the producers couldn't manipulate into agreeing with Wolter. I imagine that's why they added that weird scene at the airport of Wolter complaining about Scott being "close-minded," to try to reframe the procedings in Wolter's direction.

I'm sure I speak for many here when I ask you to pass along my congratulations to Scott for speaking truth to Wolter.

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Becky
8/28/2019 12:40:32 pm

Maggie, please know that your husband came off as a real hero to me. In fact, his input, plus the hissy fit Wolter had about him at the airport, motivated me to look into this show further, which led me here. I am just a casual viewer of these types of shows, but anyone with an iota of critical thinking ability saw what was what in the encounter with your husband. That said, I do believe that the first Dare stone could possibly be legit.

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Amanda
2/3/2013 01:15:34 pm

I found the show terribly ridiculous. Some of the footage didn't even look like Roanoke Island...anybody else notice that? Where were the salt marshes, the wetlands? Funky trees in sand right up to the water, that's not what Pamlico sound looks like! The only Hatteras Island that looked real was highway 12 while he was driving. Totally lame. And the virgin Queen Elizabeth sent them there for sassafras because she had syphilis. PUH-Lease! Kudos to Mr. Dawson for not letting the moron with his own 'court of law' rile him up. I'm glad I'm not the only person who felt this was a wasted hour out of my life. I had recorded it to show my kids since we live here on Croatoan, but it's already deleted!

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Gary J.
2/4/2013 02:35:08 pm

Jason, thanks for pointing me to this page. I just found your blog a few days ago and have not yet fully explored it.

I had a few comments on the Roanoke Colony program on your "main" page, but forgot to mention one thing: When Scott was in the airport getting ready to fly back to Minnesota, his wife calls him to tell him about an article that appeared in the newspaper that morning. And it was about the very thing that he was out "investigating" ... an article about a map that had surfaced with a mysterious patch on it.

Coincidental, huh, that the article just happened to appear in the paper at the very same time he was in North Carolina.

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Jason Colavito link
2/4/2013 10:27:02 pm

The staging of the show is really hokey. I wonder if they realize that the obvious fakeness of the staging makes Wolter and his theories also seem just as questionable.

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Alkahest
8/18/2014 12:56:36 pm

Looks like America Unearthed is on par with Sharknado on several levels.

Jason Colavito link
2/4/2013 11:23:52 pm

Actually, now that you mention it, I believe the article was dated May 2012 (which is when news archives list similar articles running), and we know from the production documents I obtained that production did not begin on the series until June 21, 2012.

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Gary J.
2/5/2013 02:41:13 pm

Jason, I just re-watched the Roanoke Colony episode ... the first time I was not paying close attention to some of the details. So here are a couple of random observations from the second viewing.

When Scott was in the Raleigh/Durham airport, ready to return to Minneapolis, his wife called him and asked if he had seen her email. He pulls out his computer, and she had sent him an article with a map drawn by John White (governor of the colony) that is in a British museum. She says, "she read it in the morning paper ... hot off the press". Her email to him is dated November 26, 2012 but the article has a publication date of May 14, 2012. Perhaps the Minneapolis newspaper was just 6 months late printing the article ... but I'm more inclined to believe there are inconsistencies in the program.

After he got to England and was talking to Stephanie Pratt, the art historian, she said the patch had "recently come to light". Makes one wonder why no one noticed the patch in the previous 400 years of its existence since it's fairly obvious. And she definitely told Scott you could see details of what's underneath the patch through x-ray analysis (not using a light box, as I think you had mentioned). And she said x-ray analysis at least twice. She speculated the reason for the patch was for the English to hide the existence of a second fort from the Spanish, since there was a lot of competition between the English and Spanish over establishing colonies. `

So then Scott runs to Cambridge to glean some more information on Sir Walter Raleigh, financier of the Roanoke Colony. When he was talking to English historian Marc Nichols at St. Johns College in Cambridge, they made the whole thing jive with Scott's pre-Columbian theme by mentioning that John Dee (another expansionist and financier) wanted to establish a British Empire in the New World, and that one of the arguments was that the British had been in America before the Spanish, thus rationalizing their colonization.

Overall, Scott didn't really establish anything. He speculated that the Dare Stones were genuine, based on what he interpreted as weathering, but he never really proved anything except the first one found was scratched onto a rock that was indigenous to the area. I would have to wonder how they found 48 stones over a period of 3 years but none had surfaced over the previous 350 years. Lots of coincidence involved in "finding" them.

Jason Colavito link
2/5/2013 10:26:48 pm

Thanks for that! I knew they had to have added the airport scene much later. The Scott Dawson interview was filmed in the summer, MONTHS earlier.

As for the map, the patch has been known for centuries. All that's new is that last year, the holding library allowed researchers to put the map over a light box to see if the light could reveal what was beneath.

Jason Colavito link
2/4/2013 11:52:12 pm

This raises many more questions, the more I think about it. For example, the production documents assert that for funding purposes, production on the pilot began 6/26/12, yet we have the episode at Mystery Hill that they state was filmed on 6/20/12 (when they captured the solstice), BEFORE they asserted that any production had begun! How could the pilot have been filmed AFTER the series?

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Mike Wilson
2/10/2013 02:57:02 pm

Noticed also the distinctive tail of an Alaska Airlines 737 behind him in the airport. They don't fly to North Carolina - but they do fly to MSP

bill
10/27/2015 02:27:30 pm

When SCOTT said he was in Raleigh Durham waiting for a flight to go back to Minnesota in fact he was sitting at Minneapolis making the phone call to his wife. The background wavy roof line of the MSP.terminal building and all the Delta airplanes ie former Northwest base were taxiing behind him in the

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Joe
2/5/2013 09:59:19 am

I think this series is already going downhill, even by its own modest standards. The last couple episodes have been particularly weak. Wolter is no longer even attempting to flesh out his theories fully. He doesn't even bother visiting the sites where the other stones were found. If he thinks the colonists traveled there, why wouldn't he have a look? He visits the golf course where the second fort location was supposed to be, so why wouldn't he go to the other locations?

It's like he's too lazy to even dream up a decent theory. He could have acknowledged most of the stones were likely fakes, but contended that the forgeries had blinded people to the fact the first stone was real. He'd still get to use his "the history were were taught is wrong" line and he'd have an actual defendable position for a change. But by buying into all the stones being real, he comes across looking foolish.

Also, he seems to get himself totally confused in talking about that second fort location. He says the daughter might possibly have went to that area because she knew her father might look for her there and because she knew a second fort might be there. Except, when she last saw here father it was at Roanoke and she knew at that time no second fort was in existence. Was Wolter theorizing she had left and returned to the area years later? None of what he was saying in that segment made any sense.

Also, as an aside, I've read up a bit on Roanoke and there are some fascinating theories out there this show doesn't even touch upon. For one, there are reports of local tribes in the area having light-colored skin and using names identical (or very close) to those of known colonists.

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Jason Colavito link
2/5/2013 11:41:59 am

There are many fascinating theories, and you're right that one of the best-supported is the idea that the remaining colonists were absorbed into local tribes, and that their legacy lives on in the genome of the Native peoples of the area.

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Kean Scott Monahan link
2/6/2013 12:38:52 am

Artist George Catlin on the Lewis and Clark expedition up the Missouri River painted, as well as reported encountering, Mandan tribal members with red hair and blue eyes in the 1830's, suggesting this was evidence of pre-Columbian contact with Old World explorers from Europe. Of course, from your perspective and that of anti-diffusionist anthropologists, this must be dismissed as anecdotal and wrong because it might widen the doorway to a new point of view contrary to the dogma that persists against any such possibility. See link above based on Mark Stengel's article, "The DIffusionists Have Landed", January 2000 Atlantic Monthly.

Joe
2/6/2013 06:02:26 am

Really, the biggest "mystery" concerning Roanoke is why so little was done to try and find them at the time. Gov. White left them and traveled to England planning on returning the next year. But it ended up taking him 3 years to return. He found the "Croatoan" clue suggesting where the colonists likely had went, noted the houses had been disassembled (not destroyed, but taken apart and moved), and there were no Maltese crosses found anywhere which was to have been the signal to note the colonists had left under stress. But, he never went to Croatoan Island to see if they were there. (His crew refused because a major storm was approaching.) After that, it was 12 more years before a second expedition was sent to look for them but that one never made it to Croatoan Island, either!

Varika
2/15/2013 08:27:45 pm

Mr. Monahan, I kind of have to say that I wish you could get your facts right. For one, Lewis and Clark were in the first decade of the 1800s--1804 to 1806. Secondly, is it not a bit easier to conclude that early Colonial DNA had spread to the Missori River tribes in the two hundred plus intervening years, rather than assuming this had to be pre-Columbian? Because Roanoke was 1587 at the last known inhabitation, and Jamestown was in place by 1607, and Spanish settlements, such as St. Augustine, predate both. The Louisiana Territory was first "taken" in 1682 and the upper portions were settled by French Canadians. A simple look at Wikipedia gives more than ample reason for there to be redheads in the Missouri valley by 1804 without the need for pre-Columbian contact!

terry the censor
2/6/2013 11:16:25 am

> crazy FBI woman on Homeland

Do you mean CIA?

> We focus in on a Polaroid with the word “murder” written in black permanent marker...No murder will be discussed in the hour, so this is all just for show.

Haha!

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Jason Colavito link
2/6/2013 11:46:54 am

Yes, you're right about Homeland. She's CIA. I fixed it above.

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Bill
2/8/2013 03:29:03 am

I am from NC and have been fascinated by the list colony story since I was a child. I was excited when I saw this episode advertised and made plans to watch it. I started talking back to the television within the first few minutes. I felt sorry for that park ranger who had to be polite while entertaining the idiot inside the Fort Raleigh earthworks. When he got pissy at the museum I said I had enough of this BS and turned on Netflix. What bothers me more is that there were no doubt many viewers who previously knew nothing about these events and now have a distorted understanding of NC history. The educational value of this program is right up there with Disneys version of Pocahontas.

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samiam
2/8/2013 04:11:28 pm

the airport scene was not in raliegh - its at MSP Minneapolis/St. Paul actually.

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Eem
2/9/2013 09:09:20 am

I stumbled across this yesterday and thank God you have this blog debunking this nonsense. I was watching for amusement but that scene with Scott Dawson and Wolter's reaction disgusted me. I couldn't watch anymore. Dawson is just being logical and was very reasonable. He was not unkind at all. And this cry baby Wolter has to go calling his wife to moan and complain about how this guy disagreed with him and hurt his feelings. Is he an adult? The worst part is that a majority of the people watching this garbage are believing every single word and probably think this Dawson guy is a creep. It's really the other way around. This show is just awful in the way it misleads. Really bad. And it will now be out there forever. Brainwashing future generations. Wolter will be raking in the dough while he continues to besmirch the people who do the actual archeological and historical research. What a total fraud! Ancient Astronauts is more entertaining and always good for a few laughs.

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Corey
2/10/2013 04:39:22 pm

Regarding the fort - I believe it is a modern reconstruction. I don't know if the original has yet been found. So he is studying the shape of a modern reconstructed fort probably dating to the WPA in the 30's and trying to draw conclusions from that?

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Gary
3/24/2013 06:34:38 pm

Corey, I maybe a little late to this conversation, but the fort at the site, while of unknown date, was excavated and rebuilt by Harrington in the 1960s. It may or may not have been built by the original colonists, but at a minimum it dates back to the 1700s and is not a WPA construction.

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kitch
5/31/2013 02:47:57 pm

After watching the exchange with Scott Dawson I just turned the tv off. It's become a joke to see how he takes selective facts to fit his theory. I just tuned in to see if maybe the ancient Phoenicians had picked up the colonists on one of their return trips from mining copper at Lake Superior.....or maybe this time it was the Knight's Templar.....or was it bigfoot? Hard to keep it all straight.
The exchange with Scott Dawson was wonderful to see, and Wolter's snit afterward was good to watch!

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Mike
12/25/2016 11:57:46 pm

I was disappointed that Wolter didn't find a hooked x in one of the stones and conclude the colonists were a branch of the Knight's Templars who left Roanoke to dig up their treasure on Oak Island. Or maybe that's for a different episode.

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Rob
9/5/2013 10:26:15 am

I think I've seen all the episodes of America Unearthed now. It most reminds me of a previous series that ran a couple of years ago, The Naked Archaeologist. In that one too, a peripherally-qualified person with an ideological axe to grind presents selected facts and personal agenda to support a non-mainstream hypothesis.

It seems to be a winning formula!

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Michael Cohen
11/17/2013 05:20:51 am

I have a lot of respect for Scott because I know our history books are mostly fiction. If you do not believe me, go to the library and look at the books about Columbus. They are written mostly by history professors and they all claim he discovered America. Very few even mention the Vikings and if they do they claim the Columbus never had any information from them even though he visited Iceland in 1477 and the famous Vineland map was published in Europe in 1453 showing the east cost of North America. It did start with Columbus: the lies and distortions of history.

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Jason Colavito link
11/17/2013 05:27:47 am

What history books are you reading? The Vikings are in almost every standard history published since 1960.

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Dr. Sheldon Cooper
11/28/2013 09:04:10 pm

"I have a lot of respect for Scott because I know our history books are mostly fiction."

Which "History books" in particular? As Mr. Colavito rightly points out...most (if not all) standard History books do indeed talk about pre-Columbian contact between Europe and the Americas.

"They are written mostly by history professors and they all claim he discovered America."

As opposed to Wolter's claims, which pretty much boil down to: "THE IRISH WERE HERE, DAMNIT!"
(Granted...better than Hair Man's "Aliens did it." At least he's giving Humans credit, albeit White ones.)

"the lies and distortions of history"

Yup. Suggestion: "Lies My Teacher Told Me" by James Loewen.

By the way, false facts are rampant in AU, it is even MORE Eurocentric than standard history, and creates a mythological view of History that is on par with "The Earth is Flat" and "George Washington and The Cherry Tree."

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Dr. Sheldon Cooper
11/28/2013 09:23:59 pm

Heh. No one mentioned the BEST part of the show. Wolter's insinuation that Queen Elizabeth had the clap. I thought the Englishman was going to crap a brick when he said that.

(Note: I'm not very well versed in English History...however, I'd chalk that up next too Tsarina Catherine the Great dying by equine prowess. But, please let me know if I'm wrong.)

Dr. Sheldon Cooper
11/28/2013 09:24:09 pm

Heh. No one mentioned the BEST part of the show. Wolter's insinuation that Queen Elizabeth had the clap. I thought the Englishman was going to poo a brick when he said that.

(Note: I'm not very well versed in English History...however, I'd chalk that up next too Tsarina Catherine the Great dying by equine prowess. But, please let me know if I'm wrong.)

Dr. Sheldon Cooper
11/28/2013 09:23:08 pm

Heh. No one mentioned the BEST part of the show. Wolter's insinuation that Queen Elizabeth had the clap. I thought the Englishman was going to crap a brick when he said that.

(Note: I'm not very well versed in English History...however, I'd chalk that up next too Tsarina Catherine the Great dying by equine prowess. But, please let me know if I'm wrong.)

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Dr. Sheldon Cooper
11/28/2013 09:23:21 pm

Heh. No one mentioned the BEST part of the show. Wolter's insinuation that Queen Elizabeth had the clap. I thought the Englishman was going to crap a brick when he said that.

(Note: I'm not very well versed in English History...however, I'd chalk that up next too Tsarina Catherine the Great dying by equine prowess. But, please let me know if I'm wrong.)

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Andy
12/8/2013 10:03:52 pm

It seems like he really did miss an opportunity to do something legitimate here: why not focus on trying to discern if the first Dare Stone is genuine (which some people allege and makes some sense) but the rest are fake? The primary technical ability he claims to apply in this show is the empirical study of weathering on inscriptions as an aid to determining age. Why not do a real comparison among the stones (throwing in some experimentally produced new carvings on similar rock as well as a control) and see what the differences are? That would be much more satisfying than looking at one stay intensively, pronouncing it to be "weathered," and then waving a hand of the remainder of purportedly faked stones and saying "these look weathered also so I'll accept them all."

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Andy
12/9/2013 04:29:33 am

Recent relevant story related to the map:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131208-roanoke-lost-colony-discovery-history-raleigh/?rptregcta=reg_free_np&rptregcampaign=20131016_rw_membership_r1p_intl_dr_w#finished

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April
1/5/2014 04:48:42 pm

Scott totally ignores that recent DNA taken from residents in the Merry Hill/Scotch Hall area which prove a match to known relatives of the Lost Colony inhabitants. CASE CLOSED, not lost. Proven by DNA. In addition, if he was that interested, the area is crawling with well known historical experts. Why not contact the famous William Kelso of Jamestown, or Ivor Noel Hume, previous head of archaeology for Colonial Williamsburg, or the College of William and Mary...all closeby to the Outer Banks area (all considered the TIdewater area). Also about the stone found in Edenton, you cannot assume it is a local stone unless found in vast amounts. Edenton was a major port and like Elizabeth City, there are tons and tons of stones there that were used as ballast on ships coming from Europe that were dumped in NC.

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Shazzi
2/22/2014 09:35:51 am

The H2 channel showed it today (2/22/14). I had seldom or never watched anything on the history channel, never heard of America Unearthed or Scott Wolter, or the Dare stones, and had no preconceptions except for thinking I was going to see a reasonably serious program. It only took a few minutes to decide that Wolter was a showman rather than a scientist or historian, and I shouldn't believe a word he said. Also he was not very logical and certainly not scientific. Then I looked things up on the web and found lots of information. Thank you for this site. I hate to think of how many people might believe what they saw. Shame on a channel that calls itself a history channel for presenting this misinformation. P.S. Scott Dawson totally showed him up.

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conrad nagel
7/28/2014 01:45:12 pm

I believe Scott Wolter be be a believable person of integrity. Anybody watch any of the bulk of the shows or just one on the Jamestown colony? It just seems like people against Wolter got an "axe to grind" and are out to "nail" him. Check out the show re: The Kensington Rune Stone found in Minnesota.

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Michael Cohen
11/23/2014 11:52:52 am

I have to laugh . All those people attacking Scott nearly two years ago predicted his show will fail, yet it is in the three season and going strong. Worse, the History Channel is started a new series about finding giants which according the the scientists never existed.
The public loves the idea that all the history books are lies and these shows attacking the establishment way of thinking such as claiming Columbus discovered America. And what about the Kennedy Assassination with 80% of the public not believing in the Warren commission and the phony historians who try to protect it,.
To show you how bad the history books are the State of Texas just passed laws requiring that all new history books claim that the prophet Moses ;played an import role in US History.

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North Carolina Geologist
9/6/2015 01:39:41 am

Wow, for a geologist, Wolter makes some major geologic missteps in this episode! First of all, quartzite is a metamorphic rock. The area of Edenton, NC is on the unmetamorphosed Coastal Plain of North Carolina. So no, Mr. Wolter, quartzite is not native to the area. Additionally, when he finds a rock near Edenton that he alleges to be quartzite, he doesn't look at it under a hand lens, something any geologist knowledgable about rock identification would do. Instead, he picks it up and declares it "glacial" quartzite. I was so shocked, I even turned on closed captioning to confirm. You see, North Carolina was never glaciated! (Nor were any of the surrounding contiguous states.) I am appalled that Mr. Wolter's is using geology to "support" his claim without taking a few minutes to actually learn the geology of the area. (Don't even get me started on his rock identification skills).

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Karen Flanagan
9/16/2015 11:25:03 pm

My kids and I just did a tour of Roanoke Island and the Lost Colony. I was looking to supplement their experience with a good documentary and came across this show in Amazon Prime Video.
What a bunch of nonsense....I think my kids got tired of me fussing at Mr. Wolton through the TV. The subject matter is very interesting to me- I had never heard of the Dare Stones. But there seemed to be very little that was scientific about this show. I also felt Mr. Wolton was incredibly rude to the gentleman who runs the museum in Hatteras. I'll be sticking with Ken Burns, PBS, and Nat Geo from now on.
Thanks so much for your informative review!

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Buck Winslow link
11/5/2015 03:28:44 pm

I would be the last person to tell you that I know what happened to those colonists. However, I find the comments about the "whited out" fort on the map in the English archives amusing considering the new archaeological evidence that suggests that some of the Roanoke colonists moved inland to what is today Bertie County, NC in the same approximate location as the "fort." Note that the Bertie site is almost directly across the Chowan River from the spot where the original Dare stone was found in 1937. This new evidence does seem to lend credence to the possible origin of the first stone being Eleanor Dare herself.

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Buck Winslow link
11/5/2015 03:42:11 pm

http://www.firstcolonyfoundation.org/news/2015_site_x_01.aspx

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