The men, who helped shape the fledgling community during its tumultuous early years, included the Rev. Robert Hunt, thought to be the first Anglican minister in the Americas; Capt. Gabriel Archer, the early expeditionary leader; Sir Ferdinando Wainman, the cousin of Sir Thomas’s, the Virginia governor; and Capt. William West, the governor’s uncle. The discovery is the first to identify the remains of such high-status early European colonists at Jamestown, and it is likely to set off renewed interest in the study of the colony, researchers said, in particular the role religion played in the colonial world.

“This is the first colony, and it’s closely connected to what follows, so what takes place at Jamestown in these early years is not separate from the mainline of development of American society,” said James Horn, the president of Jamestown Rediscovery, the organization leading the dig there. “This is the beginning of American society, and religion is a very big part of that.”

Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the Americas, established in May 1607 near the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.

The men died during the settlement’s tenuous early years when colonists struggled to grow enough food to survive and clashed with the Powhatan Confederacy, an association of Native American tribes that dominated the region.