The Englishman Ivor Noël Hume was a colossus in the twentieth-century world of archaeology, internationally recognized as the leading expert in post-medieval material culture. Brought to Colonial Williamsburg in the late 1950s from London's Guildhall Museum, he imposed modern standards of excavation, recording, and artifact analysis. There, an insistence on accuracy, combined with the ability to stir the public's imagination, opened doorways to the past for thousands. Noël, as he was known to his friends, trained the next generation of historical archaeologists and set an example for those unfortunate not to have been associated with him. Noël's death left his report on the Fort Raleigh excavations unfinished, but he ensured that two of his long-term associates would carry it to completion.

Both Eric Klingelhofer and Nicholas Luccketti are former Colonial Williamsburg archaeologists, trained by the internationally recognized expert Ivor Noël Hume. They participated in the 1991-93 National Geographic excavations at Fort Raleigh, and the late Noël Hume later asked them to complete his report for publication. Eric Klingelhofer is Emeritus Professor of History at Mercer University, and Nicholas Luccketti is president of the James River Institute for Archaeology. In 2003, they founded First Colony Foundation, which researches Sir Walter Raleigh's New World colonies.