Archaeology Blog

Field School Week 4

by Mat Parsons

In the fourth week of the Poplar Forest Field school we once again returned to Monticello for a lesson in dendrochronology. We started the morning with a classroom instruction on how plantation landscapes change through time when left in fallow through woodland reclamation and the applications of dendrochronology. We then headed into the woods for some hands on application where we got to see how a tree core sample is taken

We then got to end the trip with a visit to James Monroe’s home at Highland where we taught about that locations use of archaeology for clearing up historical misconceptions about the house and land use as well as exciting possibilities of archaeology for the future!

Back at Poplar Forest, Alice and Brandon got to try their hands as at the float tank to search soil samples for archaeological evidence too small to be found in screening.