When you purchase through link on our land site , we may make an affiliate commission . Here ’s how it works .

Archaeologists unexpectedly unearthed the remnant of a 17th - century home ’s introduction while doing dig piece of work in Virginia .

The site , which is locate on the grounds of Colonial Williamsburg , was one of the first settlements of the original colonists who came to the New World from Europe , according to a assertion from Colonial Williamsburg .

An excavation site with archaeologists working in hard hats

Colonial Williamsburg archaeologists excavate the foundation of a 17th-century building.

Researchers estimate that the house was make as early as 1660 , making it the oldest known Colonial structure in the part .

" This is furious for us to have found something like this , " Jack Gary , executive director of archeology at Colonial Williamsburg , say in avideoannouncing the discovery .

In addition to the home ’s foundation garment and cellar , archaeologists unearthed numerous artifacts and construction material from when the house was still stand .

A person holds a white-and-blue ceramic shard.

A ceramic fragment excavated from the building’s cellar.

touch : Revolutionary War barracks burned by the British discovered in Colonial Williamsburg

" A lot of the textile are what an affluent household would have had , " Gary tell . " We ’re finding things like adhesive plaster from the wall , leaded casement window and high - death ceramics . And we just base the handle of a silver teaspoon , which is just wild . "

The artefact are " really significant , " since they " tell apart the tale of what biography was like [ back then ] , " Gary added .

YouTube

— Remains of 4 Confederate soldiers , amputated legs and gold coin found at a Civil War battlefield in Virginia

— Jamestown colonists killed and feed the click of Indigenous Americans

— George Washington ’s stash of century - old cherries ascertain hidden under Mount Vernon flooring

A strawberry-shaped bronze spoon with a circular handle on a white background.

Once excavation are fill in , the space above the excavation land site will be home to a raw archaeology center that is schedule to open in 2026 and will house the world ’s largest collection of artefact from the 17th to 19th centuries of Colonial America , grant to astatementfrom Colonial Williamsburg .

" We ’re going to cover over most of [ the site ] and preserve the majority of it underneath the construction , but we have the outstanding chance to showcase it with a glass story construction [ over ] one of the sections of the origination , " Gary said . " Our visitors will literally be able to brook on top of history and attend down on it and it will cue them that wherever they go in Williamsburg , there ’s history underneath their fundament . "

A vessel decorated with two human-like faces (one is shown above).

an aerial view of an excavated settlement with labelled regions

a diver examines a shipwreck

A selection of metal objects

A pile of gold and silver coins

Remains of the Heroon, a small temple built for the burial cluster of Philip II at the Museum of the Royal Tombs inside the Great Tumulus of Aigai (Aegae)

The coin hoard, amounting to over $340,000, was possibly hidden by people fleeing political persecution.

a close-up of a handmade stone tool

a wrecked car underwater

Green carved scarab beetle in a gold setting and a gold chain

A series of stacked human skulls lie face-down in the mud at the bottom of a cave

A scuba diver descends down a deep ocean reef wall into the abyss.

An artist�s illustration of a satellite crashing back to Earth.

Reconstruction of an early Cretaceous landscape in what is now southern Australia.

A photo of the Large Hadron Collider�s ALICE detector.

An illustration of a satellite crashing into the ocean after an uncontrolled reentry through Earth�s atmosphere