Scientists at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History examined the skeleton of a young boy who may have been one of the first colonists to travel to the New World nearly 400 years ago. It has been reported live science.
Researchers believe the 14-16-year-old most likely arrived in Maryland in the 1630s during the first wave of colonists after the Mayflower (the first ship of European settlers) landed in 1620. He probably came as a contract servant and may have traveled without his family. He could enter into a contract where he had to work for a certain period of time and then take a piece of land as his property.
In America, the teenager did not live long, and before his death he broke a leg bone that never healed. His body was found buried in a meadow in a small city in the District of Columbia that once served as Maryland’s original capital. His posture shows that his body was thrown into the grave without ceremony, buried without a shroud.
Two years after archaeologists discovered a lost fort built by colonists who had recently arrived in the Americas, they uncovered the burial place of a European boy. Other finds at the site include a nearly 400-year-old silver coin depicting King Charles I of England.