CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands (AP):
ARCHAEOLOGISTS EXCAVATING a former Danish colonial fort in the U.S. Virgin Islands have unearthed human remains that are likely 300 years old, the project leader said.
The remains of a large man and a toddler were found recently beneath a one-time Lutheran church located in Fort Christian, David Brewer, a government archaeologist, said Friday.
The man was probably one of four church pastors who died during the first 10 years of Danish settlement in the island of St. Thomas, Brewer said.
The archaeological findings resulted from repairs to the fort, which has been battered by a tsunami, hurricanes and earthquakes. The repairs began in May.
DANISH FORT
Denmark ruled St. Thomas and the other two islands of the Virgin Islands from the late 17th century until selling them to the United States in 1917.
Danish colonisers built the once-impregnable fort between 1672 and 1680, naming it after Denmark's King Christian V.
Now a museum, the fort - once used as a church, courthouse, prison, military base and seat of government - has been the dominant building in Charlotte Amalie since its construction.
In November, excavation crews found bone fragments and teeth from two people buried beneath the church.
Some of the bones will be sent to the University of Copenhagen in Denmark for further study, Brewer said.
Archaeologists also have found centuries-old pipe stems, broken glass fragments, coffin nails, musket balls, an early 18th-century Danish coin and graffiti on the old prison cell walls.
