Paper short abstract:

Almost all archaeology conducted in the Outer Banks of North Carolina has been focused on the Lost Colony of Roanoke. This paper discusses the challenges and advantages of conducting British academic fieldwork on ordinary contact period colonial sites without a specific Lost Colony agenda.

Paper long abstract:

The Outer Banks of North Carolina is a place of extremes: hundreds of shipwrecks, devastating hurricanes, and the holy grail of American archaeology - the mystery of the Lost Colony. There are hundreds of miles of shoreline in a chain of numerous inhabited islands with a long history of native and English colonial occupation, but to date almost all of the archaeology carried out in the region has been focused on just a few square miles of Roanoke Island in a tireless quest for any evidence of the original 1587 settlement of Raleigh's Lost Colony.

This paper details the challenges of conducting surveys and excavations on contact period sites in Cape Hatteras without a specific focus on the Lost Colony. I will look at how the search for the Lost Colony has deeply affected local opinions of archaeology, has provided unique challenges in coordinating volunteer and professional efforts, and has contributed to a large gap in the archaeological record of both native and later colonial occupation. I will also outline the difficulties and advantages of conducting fieldwork as a Carolina-trained American archaeologist doing British academic research in Hatteras; a place where most American academics and government agents are viewed with suspicion or even outright hostility, but where "outsiders" from across the Atlantic have no stigma attached to there presence.