In the third week of the 2010 summer field school, Poplar Forest’s archaeological field students continued digging in Sites A and B, which lay within the southeastern portion of the core and continues into the curtilage. Students spent most of their time mapping features and recovering noteworthy artifacts as they passed through the plow-zone layer in their units. They are hoping to find the remains of Jefferson’s stables and slave cabins that once stood here.

The theme of this week’s lessons was Africans and African-American Archaeology.  Through readings, such as Barbara Heath’s Hidden Lives: The Archaeology of Slave Life at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest and articles written by Poplar Forest’s archaeologists, the students delved deeper into the unique culture that developed from west African traditional influences under the pressures of slavery.  Students also examined the changing face of slavery as an institution during the 18th and 19th century as white slave owners worked to perfect it as a permanent fixture of Southern plantation living.  The field school applied these broader social contexts to the lives of the enslaved laborers that resided at Poplar Forest during the Jeffersonian and Antebellum period in order to understand slave life in Central Virginia more thoroughly.  Interestingly, students have been digging around the antebellum slave quarter site located in Site A.   Artifacts found help intimately illuminate the daily lives of enslaved laborers that would otherwise be obscured by primary documents mostly composed by white owners and overseers.

The third week of field school was shortened to accommodate a two-day field trip to visit significant archaeological sites in northern Virginia.  On Thursday, the 24th, the field school students left Poplar Forest and made the two and a half hour drive to Ferry Farm in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  Ferry Farm was George Washington’s home until the age of 16.  From Ferry Farm, the group continued east on route 3 to Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee.  The following day the students turned north and spent the day touring George Washington’s adult home at Mount Vernon and learned about the archaeological research taking place there today.

The field trip capped an exciting week at Poplar Forest and allowed the students to compare and contrast different sites around the state and how each are uniquely researched and interpreted.