VIRGINIA ARCHITECTURE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
I
FIRST IN VIRGINIA: AMERICAN INDIAN ARCHITECTURE
When the first English colonists arrived before Jamestown Island, Virginia, on May 13, 1607, there was already in existence an indigenous architecture which had been flourishing in that land for hundreds of years. It is true that that particular kind of architecture, American Indian, was, by and large, a perishable wooden one; nevertheless, the subject may not be ignored by stating that it did not exist. This Indian art of building forms an important chapter in the early history of Virginia.
For thousands of years the Indian—a light-brown man, with brown or black eyes, and straight, blue-black hair—was the owner of what is now the United States of America. That he roamed the country which is now called Virginia for "countless centuries" is proven by the ancient Folsom spear points—one of red jasper—discovered among the Peaks of Otter, near the Skyline Drive, Bedford County, Virginia. And the Indians who made those spear points lived thirteen thousand or more years ago.