Archaeologists unearth secrets of America's oldest tombstone

The oldest known tombstone in America, long believed to have marked the grave of a knight, has a fascinating backstory that's finally been untangled.

The tombstone, unearthed in the Chesapeake Bay region, was believed to have been made from 'black marble', but that has now been found to not be the case. 

It is in fact fine-grained black limestone, polished to look like marble - with the stone itself dating back to 1627 and coming across the Atlantic from Belgium.

The truth has been published thanks to a new study in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology.

The new details came to light after tiny fossils were found to be embedded in the stone, while the stone was indeed connected to an English knight who had been present in Jamestown, Virginia.

Known as the 'black marble knight's tombstone,' the gravestone was originally laid in a Jamestown church in 1617. 

The shiny, black, polished surface was adorned with brass inlays and possibly depicted a knight holding a sword. 

The shiny black stone was especially sought after in the English upper class in the 17th Century is is the only known tombstone in the English colonies with engraved with the brass inlays. 

The rare design would have been fit for a someone from nobility while researchers also believe it might have marked the burial site of Sir George Yeardley, one of two English knights who died around that time.

In order to solve the mystery of the tombstone's origin, researchers were able to analyze the fossil fragments and found six species of single-celled organisms that only existed together in Ireland and Belgium and not in North America.

That discovery, combined with historical records, led archeologists to conclude the stone was imported from Belgium and evidence of a vast colonial trade network across the Atlantic.

Markus Key, one of the study's authors said that it appeared the colonists were ordering luxury tombstones from Europe.

'The knight's tombstone had to be imported from Europe. Historical evidence suggests Belgium, from where it was transshipped in London and on to Jamestown,' the authors wrote in the study.

'Little did we realize that colonists were ordering black marble tombstones from Belgium like we order items from Amazon, but a lot slower,' Markus Key, a co-author of the study told Phys.org. 

'The cost to import the stone to Jamestown, even using it as ballast, would have added greatly to the cost of the stone itself, the carving for the brass inlays, and the fabrication and fitting of the brass inlays,' the authors explained in the study.

'Whoever was buried under the knight's tombstone was a prominent member of the Jamestown settlement.'

The tombstone was lost for centuries before being rediscovered in 1901 and restored before being places in Memorial Church in Jamestown, Virginia during its construction in 1906. 

Despite new insights into its origins, the identity of the person buried beneath it still remains shrouded in mystery. 

But one thing is clear: whoever they were, their legacy was grand enough to merit a tombstone imported from Europe, nearly four centuries ago.