In an October 2017 statement, the First Colony Foundation reported finding fragments of Tudor pottery and weapons at Site X, and concluded that these indicate a small group of colonists residing peacefully in the area. The challenge for this research is to convincingly rule out the possibility that such finds were not brought to the area by the 1585 Lane colony, or the trading post established by Nathaniel Batts in the 1650s. In 2019, the Foundation announced plans to expand the research into land that has been donated to North Carolina as Salmon Creek State Natural Area.