Archaeology & History

Mystery of America's 'lost colony' may have finally been solved

By T.K. Randall
May 14, 2025 ·  9 comments

The infamous 'CROATOAN' message. Image Credit: William Ludwell Sheppard / William James Linton According to historical records, in the late 16th century, 118 colonists from England settled on the island of Roanoke in what is now North Carolina.

Things weren't easy for the colonists, however, and they soon found themselves short on supplies.

Things got so bad that, in 1587, the colony's leader - Ralph Lane - decided to return to England to request more supplies, but when he finally returned with a supply ship three years later, he found that the entire colony was now completely deserted.

Anything of use or value had been stripped, and the only clue to the colonists' whereabouts was the word 'CROATOAN,' which someone had etched into a wooden post.

This suggested that they had gone to join the Croatoan natives who lived around 50 miles to the south, but whether they had ever made it there has long remained something of a mystery. Some stories suggested that the colonists had been killed by hostile natives, while others maintained that they had been attacked by the Spanish or had died from disease.

Now, though, excavations on Hatteras Island - the home of the Croatoans - has yielded definitive evidence indicating that the lost colonists actually did make it there after all.

This comes in the form of hammerscale dating back to the 1500s and is a sure sign that the colonists must have reached the island as the natives did not have metalworking technology at the time.

"The hammerscale shows that English settlers lived among the Croatoans on Hatteras and were ultimately absorbed into their community," archaeologist Mark Horton told Mail Online.

"Once and for all, this smoking gun evidence answers any questions about the supposed mystery of the lost colony."

Source: Mail Online | Comments (9)

Tags: Colony, Raonoke