Werowocomoco was a village that served as the headquarters of Chief Powhatan, a Virginia Algonquian political and spiritual leader when the English founded Jamestown in 1607.

The Gloucester County Board of Supervisors noted that in the Algonquian language the designation for the village of the chief was not a place name, but more correctly translated as a reference to the lands where he lived.

While residing there, he received tribute from several Virginia Algonquian tribes in return for providing food in times of famine, military protection, and spiritual powers.

By that time Pocahontas had both become a celebrity in England due to her 1616–17 visit there and had died, which allowed Smith to exploit their previous and perhaps actually slight acquaintance without contradiction from her.

In December 1608, Powhatan offered to sell them an entire "shipload of corn in exchange for a grindstone, fifty swords, some guns, a cock and a hen, copper and beads, and some men to build him an English-style house.

Sending four "Dutchmen" (Germans) ahead by land to work on the house, Smith headed for Werowocomoco by sea on December 29 with a small force.

Powhatan may also have been showing bad faith; while en route, Smith received a report at Warraskoyack that the chief was plotting an ambush of his party.

Smith's party traveled up the Pamunkey River to trade with Powhatan's brother Opechancanough, whom they threatened at gunpoint to gain food supplies.

About 25 myles lower on the North side of this river is Werawocomoco, where their great king inhabited when I was delivered him prisoner; yet there are not past 40 able men.

When he collected artifacts from the surface of plowed fields and along the beach, he found fragments of Indian ceramics ranging in time from the Late Woodland Period up to European contact.

"We believe we have sufficient evidence to confirm that the property is indeed the village of Werowocomoco", said Randolph Turner, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources' Portsmouth Regional Office in 2003.

[3][14] Excavations at the site since 2003 have revealed evidence of a large town, including two 200-foot (61 m)-long, curved, earthwork ditches built 1,000 feet (300 m) from the river bank about 1400, two hundred years before the English first visited the area.

In 2014, President Barack Obama proposed future federal budget funding to acquire this site in Gloucester County to make it part of the National Park System.

Artifacts recovered include Native pottery and stone tools, as well as floral and faunal remains from a large residential community.

The Research Group has also recovered numerous English trade goods, produced from glass, copper, and other metals, which came from Jamestown.

This conforms to colonists' accounts of trading at Werowocomoco; they noted that Powhatan was very interested in English objects, particularly copper, during the early days of the Jamestown colony.

The researchers have determined the ditches dated from about 1400 CE, indicating Virginia Indians had established long-term settlement at this site more than 200 years prior to the English arrival at Jamestown.

This project is notable because archaeologists and other researchers have carefully incorporated consultation about planning and executing the excavations with members of the local recognized Virginia Indian tribes.

The spirituality just touches me and I feel it.Because of the significance of the excavations, in 2006 the Werwomocomo Archaeological Site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).