Here lies the start of her Commonwealth

Standing on the site of America’s birthplace, scraped clean by archaeologists, Queen Elizabeth II peered down at a well shaft that revealed the beginnings of the British Commonwealth.

Fifty years ago, when she was last on Jamestown Island, no one knew evidence existed of the first permanent English settlement in the New World. The queen came Friday to stand where Englishmen in 1607 built a fort and to see what had been unearthed there by the team of archaeologists at Historic Jamestowne directed by William M. Kelso.