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Michael Lavin raises his hand and shows me a single tobacco seed swirling in a small vial of water. This tiny brown speck he tells me, is a 400-year-old national treasure, one that is helping archaeologists uncover the story of the birth of America.
Lavin is a conservator with the Jamestown Rediscovery Project, which is unearthing the remains of England’s first successful colony in the New World. In the past few years, he says, the dig has uncovered more than 1 million artefacts, and…
