The missing colony mystery solved -- maybe

 

I haven't seen any "legit" science magazines or journals discussing and presenting this story; I first saw it in the Daily Mail.  

It sounds legitimate and it sounds like this could be the key to the mystery. But it has to pass scientific scrutiny, so stay tuned.

There are actually two stories; one is about the map, and one is about the hammerscale. See below.

1. The map:  Secret in 400-year-old map may have finally solved the mystery of Roanoke

"Those remained mere conjectures for 422 years until British Museum curator Kim Sloan and colleague Alice Rugheimer shed literal light on the mystery: They put John White’s map on a lightbox to see what was behind the blank coverup, whereupon the duo discovered a symbol for a fort.

“I said to Alice, ‘I think we just discovered the intended site for the Cittie of Raleigh, the colony that John White was sent to Virginia to found,'” Sloan told Popular Mechanics. “And then I think I swore.”

2. The hammerscale: (hammerscale is bits of iron that come off a piece being forged) ‘The Lost Colony Isn’t Lost Anymore’: New Artifacts Could Finally Prove What Happened To The ‘Lost Colony Of Roanoke’

"Dawson and Horton have been digging near the former Roanoke and Croatoan settlements for more than a decade, during which they uncovered numerous weapons and European artifacts on Hatteras Island. Those discoveries provided some good support for Dawson’s theory, but the artifacts could just as easily have supported some of the more macabre theories about the colonists’ fates. 

As the researchers said, “coins and sword hilts could have got to Hatteras through trade or a passing settler.” 

Their most recent discovery, however, is a clear sign that European settlers were indeed living on the island. “The hammerscale shows that English settlers lived among the Croatoans on Hatteras and were ultimately absorbed into their community,” Horton told the Daily Mail. 

“Once and for all, this smoking gun evidence answers any questions about the supposed mystery of the lost colony.” Horton asserted that the Croatoan would not have been conducting the sort of blacksmithing that would produce hammerscale — but English settlers would have."

Hammerscale looks like this: