Thursday, September 17, 2026
By Mary Ellen Riddle | Outer Banks Voice on May 17, 2025
Earlier this month, Scott Dawson of Buxton sat in front of a mound of excavated material from a recent archeological dig on Hatteras Island.
He ran a small metal disc through particles found in the level of the dig that were identified as being from the 16th Century. It included a deer tooth, fish vertebrae and shells. He had already picked out larger artifacts such as beads and lead shot.
Everything that was not metallic fell from the magnet he was holding. What was left proved to be miniscule pieces of metal called hammer scales—pieces of molten iron that fly off during the blacksmithing process.
Finding the hammer scales was a long awaited “aha” moment for the team that had been excavating on the island since 2009. “We’d been finding 16TH century artifacts for years, but when we find an actual blacksmith shop, it definitely shows that they are living and working here,” says Dawson of the storied Lost Colony of English settlers.
The fragile metal pieces were key in helping prove that the English explorers who visited Roanoke and Croatoan (now Hatteras) islands were never lost as has been widely shared for years through history books, literature, and the Lost Colony drama. “It’s not the hammer scales by itself that proves everything. That’s just the last stitch that ties everything together,” says Dawson. “It’s also the finding of Elizabethan swords, gun, Tudor Rose, Hammer scale, cannon balls, tools—most of them repurposed.”
Finding the bits of iron was a turning point in the years of digging to prove that what has been chronicled as the Lost Colony that eft Roanoke Island voluntarily went to Croatoan Island where the English had already established a friendly relationship with the native people. And they found that area to be the best spot to plunder Spanish ships—the initial reason for the English to go to the New World. Five voyages were made between 1584 and 1590, says Dawson, with two going to Croatoan.
Dawson’s quest was aided by reading the primary source documents written by explorers Thomas Harriot, John White, Ralph Lane and all the military captains that voyaged to Roanoke and Croatoan islands. His belief was bolstered by several factors, including having viewed a period English map that included the latitude and longitude points of Croatoan Island.
Dawson also notes that the settlers left two signs fastened to trees on Roanoke Island that indicated where they had gone. “John White, in his own words, states that he took this to mean that the colonists must have gone to Croatoan,” wrote Dawson in his book “The Lost Colony and Hatteras Island.”
Then there was an account of later voyagers meeting blue-eyed Indians on Croatan Island, which Dawson says points to the English assimilating into the Croatoan blood line.
“It’s not like this stuff is in hieroglyphics in an underwater cave,’ says Dawson. “” All you have to do is read the primary sources. It’s crystal clear.”
Dawson never believed the Colony was lost. A native of Hatteras Island like generations of family before him, Dawson has a deep feeling for the island’s history. In fact, a number of his family members including his twin brother, father and several uncles and cousins participated in digs.
Working with world renowned English Archaeologist Mark Horton, Dawson was in good company.
‘I met Mark Horton in 2009,” says Dawson. “I’d already written a book about Croatoan, and he was in America anyway. I worked at Festival Park in Manteo but had recently quit [and] everybody there told him you need to go and talk to this guy.”
So, Horton met up with Dawson and they did some test pits no bigger than a hot tub and one of them had three skeletons in the bottom. “From there it blossomed into an international project with scientists from all around the world,” says Dawson.
Horton was already interested in looking at the before and aftereffects when Europeans go into any indigenous place—good or bad, says Dawson. So, the Croatoan project was his cup of tea.
He was with the University of Bristol in England when he and Dawson teamed up. He comes to Hatteras once a year for a week to dig, leading the team that started working in 2009 and over time, has swelled from nine members to over 100 including scientists and volunteers.
The team has been working multiple sites in Frisco, Hatteras, and Buxton “You just go wherever is in most danger of being built on,” says Dawson.
The team has discovered a number of 16th Century artifacts as well as some dating much further back. The latter included a Tudor Rose, a rapier sword, and even a Nuremberg token. “Which of course is identical to the ones they got at Fort Raleigh,” says Dawson.
They also uncovered but left undisturbed a number of skeletons that were buried in the Croatoan burial style; facing East with arms and legs tied together in a fetal position
Dawson is the president of the Croatoan Archeological Society, a nonprofit formed to raise money for the digs and to support the Lost Colony Museum that he opened in Buxton in 2023 to display the artifacts. The Museum houses at least 1,000 artifacts and sells items including clothing that features a Croatoan symbol and the three books he has written on his passionate subject.
To spread the word, Dawson also goes into the schools and also conducts Zoom sessions to teach the history he’s long researched.
Local school kids visit the museum and a group of eight-year-olds even got to sift through a bucket of material from a pit. They found 27 musket balls and a part of a silver ring. The treasures stayed at the museum, but the kids were happy to go home with bear teeth, says Dawson.
The Lost Colony Museum is open Monday – Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. It is located at 46618 North Carolina Highway 12, Buxton, 27920
Comments
The Abandoned Colony
This is case where the narrative of a fictional play became so well known that it supplanted the clearly documented historical record supported by the journals of John White, John Lawson, and others. The “Lost Colony” play was originally funded by the WPA and the CCC during the depression to help stimulate the economy on the Outer Banks. The fictional narrative took on a life of its own with the financial and political support of the state and federal governments for the past 88 years.
Congratulations and thanks to Scott Dawson for his decades of swimming against the tide in an effort to reclaim the true history of the abandoned colony, which likely became the first mixed-race colony in North America. It is an embarrassment to the Old North State (UNC, Duke, etc.) that Mr. Dawson needed to find support from Dr Horton at the University of Bristol in England to conduct these archeological excavations.
Craig
The few that might have survived might have went native, seems logical. But those blood lines died out long ago, still lost in my opinion.