A woman in Native American clothes is sitting in the sun, sewing a dress from skin. Inside a building, a colonist is making a wooden chair, using very simple tools. And all around, tourists are taking pictures with their digital (数码的) cameras. This is Jamestown Settlement today.
Jamestown, Virginia, was one of the first places in the world where people from Europe, America, and Africa came together in 1608. Today, it is a living history museum, where children and adults come to experience history. In a living history museum, actors wear clothes from the past and demonstrate many of the activities of daily life back then. The actors also talk to the visitors and explain everything they do.
At a Living History museum, there are always many things to touch, hear, and smell Visitors at Jamestown Settlement can walk through copies of the three small sailing ships that carried colonists to Virginia and even lie down in a colonist’s bed. The colonists stayed on the crowed, dangerous ships for more than four months. When they got to Virginia they built an area of houses with a high wall around it in today’s fort(堡垒)，you can see houses, a church, and even a garden with foods that the colonists ate. Women in long dresses work inside their homes, and visitors can help them with their sewing and cooking.
There is also an Indian Village at Jamestown Settlement, and it looks very different from the fort. It shows how the Indians lived in long houses and grew corn and other crops in large fields. Actors there make pottery(陶器) and teach visitors how to play Indian games. You can even help them make an Indian boat from a tree.
Today the living history museum of Jamestown is very popular, especially with children and families. People come here to have fun, but also to learn. Many school classes visit to experience old ways of getting things done. A living history museum is the best way to understand how people lived in the past.