A US-based archaeologist who has studied one of the first settlements in Bermuda will return next month to continue his groundbreaking work.

Michael Jarvis, a professor at the University of Rochester in New York, will take a team of volunteers and students to Smith’s Island in St George’s to reignite the search for the “Captain’s House”, an early commander’s residence.

Dr Jarvis said the site of the island’s first settlements could reveal more about which Native American groups were sent to Bermuda, as well as how the site had an impact on the growth of Bermudian culture.

He added: “This settlement being here for 100 years shows you potentially 80 years of different people — Englishmen, Africans and Native Americans — slowly becoming a new, unique Bermudian culture.”

Dr Jarvis started the Smith’s Island Archaeology Project in 2012 to study the settlement.

He explained that Smallpox Bay contained a house occupied by the acting captain of the nearby Smith’s Port but he had been unable to locate it.

The most his project had found, he said, was a series of post holes — rounded spaces that served as foundations for early home building — cut into the bedrock.

Dr Jarvis said that his teams used ground-penetrating radar to uncover a detached kitchen for the enslaved people of the Captain's House, as well as a water cistern and the foundation of another building.

He added that excavations uncovered Native American artefacts in the detached kitchen, which supported the understanding that there were several enslaved Native Americans working at the settlement, particularly under Captain Boaz Sharpe.

Dr Jarvis said: “It appears to be three generations — an older couple, an early midlife couple and then five children.

“They would have lived in that house in the kitchen. They ran the whole property — they probably did all the work, kept livestock, produced cloth and fished.”

He added: “On paper it looks like a White man’s house, but in reality it is actually much more of a reflection of Native American culture than this White captain.

“Right next door, I know St David’s has a long tradition and affiliation with Native American culture and this is a tangible connection to that.”

Dr Jarvis said the site could shed light on Bermuda’s “ethnogenesis”, or the creation of a culture from several others coming together.

His project had a large boost of support between 2022 and 2024, although Dr Jarvis admitted that grants for his project dried up after “the US got a little bumpy”.

Despite this, he said, his team would continue “all the promising work” they left behind in 2024.

The group is made up of six archaeology students and about four Bermudian volunteers, all of whom would be assisted by a partnership with the Bermuda National Trust.

Dr Jarvis said he was happy to accept donations in landscaping equipment, boats or manpower.

He added that he hoped to see more locals get involved with the work.

Dr Jarvis said: “I’m profoundly grateful and aware that I’m investigating other people’s pasts. I want them to be co-discoverers of that past and not be an imperial archaeologist coming into someone else’s culture and doing it for them.

“Community-engaged archaeology, I think, is the gold standard.”

Charlotte Andrews, the head of cultural heritage at the Bermuda National Trust, said: “The ongoing archaeological research of Michael Jarvis and his team of overseas students and local volunteers is expanding our understanding of early Bermuda and its connections within the Atlantic world.

“Discoveries on Smith’s Island are helping to illuminate the island’s earliest settlement and contribute to the Outstanding Universal Value of the Historic Town of St George and Related Fortifications World Heritage Site.

“We are proud to partner with Dr Jarvis, who has dedicated much of his career to Bermuda’s history and archaeology, and long partnered with BNT to help reveal our shared heritage.”

The project will run between May 25 and June 29, while updates will be posted on Dr Jarvis’s blog.