David S. Phelps

NAGS HEAD, N.C. - David S. Phelps, the archaeologist who unearthed a 16th-century gold signet ring while exploring ties between native people and the doomed English colonists who first tried to settle the Outer Banks, died Feb. 21. He was 79. Phelps was professor emeritus of anthropology at East Carolina University in Greenville. The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk reported he died at Fort Pierce, Fla. The ring proved to have no apparent link to the 1587 English colony that vanished from Roanoke Island. But it was the first evidence that Sir Walter Raleigh's explorers had contacts with the Indians. Phelps found the ring in 1998. He took the ring and other artifacts found near Croatan, now known as Buxton, with him. He returned the ring to ECU in 2006.