Trading with the Indians

The English silver coin at top, uncovered during excavations of the original settlement at Jamestown, bears the date 1602. The coin below it, a halfgroat that was minted sometime between 1583 and 1603, was also unearthed. Both of these coins had been fashioned into ornaments—the 1602 coin turned into a pendant, the halfgroat rolled into a bead—and probably used by English colonists in trading with the Indians.