Archaeologists have uncovered human remains of four of the earliest leaders of the English colony that would become America, buried for more than 400 years near the altar of what was America’s first Protestant church in Jamestown, Virginia.

The four burial sites were uncovered in the floor of what’s left of Jamestown’s historic Anglican church from 1608, a team of scientists and historians announced on Tuesday. The site is the same church where Pocahontas married Englishman John Rolfe, leading to peace between the Powhatan Indians and colonists at the first permanent English settlement in America.

Beyond the human remains, archaeologists also found artifacts buried with the colonial leaders – including a mysterious Catholic container for holy relics found in the Protestant church.

The Jamestown Rediscovery archaeology team revealed its discovery at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History. The museum is helping to study and identify those buried in the church. The burials were first uncovered in November 2013, but the scientific team wanted to trace and identify its findings with some certainty before announcing the discovery.

Archaeologists have been studying the site since 1994 when the original James Fort – long thought to be lost and submerged in the James river – was rediscovered.

The team identified the remains of the Rev Robert Hunt, Jamestown’s first Anglican minister who was known as a peacemaker between rival colonial leaders; Captain Gabriel Archer, a nemesis of one-time colony leader John Smith; Sir Ferdinando Wainman, probably the first knight buried in America; and Captain William West, who died in a fight with the Powhatan Indians. The three other men probably died after brief illnesses. They were buried between 1608 and 1610.

“What we have discovered here in the earliest English church in America are four of the first leaders of America,” said historian James Horn, who is president of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation. “There’s nothing like it anywhere else in this country.”

While the individuals buried at Jamestown were not royalty, they were considered pivotal figures in the early colony. Horn compared the find to the 2012 discovery of the lost grave of King Richard III in England.

Two years ago, the Jamestown team found evidence of survival cannibalism in the colony.

Perhaps just as interesting as the newly discovered human remains are some of the artifacts buried with the bodies. Burial items were rare in English culture at the time, archaeologists said.

In the remnants of Archer’s coffin, archaeologists found a captain’s leading staff as a symbol of Archer’s military status. Historical records indicate Archer helped lead some of the earliest expeditions to Jamestown. He died at the age of 34 during a six-month period known as the “starving time” when many perished due to disease, starvation and battles with Indians.

Mysteriously, a small silver box resting atop Archer’s coffin turns out to be probably a Catholic reliquary containing bone fragments and a container for holy water. Archer’s parents were Catholic in Protestant England, which became illegal. So the discovery raises the question of whether Archer was perhaps part of a secret Catholic cell – or even a Catholic spy on behalf of the Spanish.

Catholic relics have been found in the Jamestown archaeological site before, but the placement of this box seems particularly symbolic, the historians said. They used CT scans to see inside the box without damaging it – gaining a view that wouldn’t have been possible 10 years ago.