Discarded Oysters Show Colonists Suffered Drought

Amazing what poking through the trash reveals, even if it's a few hundred years old. Scientists studying oysters discarded by the early settlers of Jamestown, Virginia, have concluded that the colonists suffered through a horrible drought, reports BBC. The oysters were high in salt, meaning the James River where they were harvested wasn't being fed by freshwater rivers and rain.

The finding isn't a surprise but rather provides scientific heft to the chronicles left behind by the colonists. “It was interesting trying to figure out what was happening in the colony at a time when 70 to 80% of the colonists were dying,” says one researcher, as recounted in Wired. “This was CSI Jamestown." Scientists think the drought was the worst to hit the region in 800 years.
(More Jamestown stories.)