USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -The settlers of the new colony-named Jamestown-were immediately besieged by attacks from Algonquian natives, rampant disease, and internal political strife. In their first winter, more than half of the colonists perished from famine and illness.

Detailed explanation-2: -The scientists are finding that the Jamestown aquifer water contains high, but varying, levels of arsenic. But arsenic may be far down on a list of problems that include high salinity, various metals and fecal contamination from the colonists’ latrines.

Detailed explanation-3: -Famine, disease and conflict with local Native American tribes in the first two years brought Jamestown to the brink of failure before the arrival of a new group of settlers and supplies in 1610.

Detailed explanation-4: -The colony was located in a swampy peninsula; if the settlers ingested its brackish waters, some researchers have speculated, they could have become ill with salt poisoning. The early settlers also suffered through an extreme drought.