MailOnline December 9 2013
- A satellite survey of area around Albemarle Sound has identified key areas of interest
- Scientists are searching these areas using ground penetrating radar (GPR)
- GPR measures the depth that signals travel before hitting a hidden object
- So far, they have found a previously ‘undetected pattern’ that they claim may indicate a former colonial presence in the area
New radar images have shown that British colonists may have settled in a remote part of what is now North Carolina more than 400 years ago – potentially solving a centuries-old mystery.
It was never fully known where a group of 120 settlers from England ended up after they left Europe and headed to the ‘New World’. Historians have debated the fate of the so-called ‘Lost Colony’ for years – having been left with no more evidence than the word ‘Croatoan’ carved into a tree near the abandoned settlement.
Researchers may have now taken a large step towards settling the debate after enlisting the help of magnetometers and ground-penetrating radar (GPR).
And, in the stuff of a schoolboy’s dreams, the researchers have backed up the glittering technology’s findings with ‘secret’ evidence from a 400-year-old map drawn by one of the settlement’s founders