Jul 5, 2017

Archaeological Field School Week 3

By Katie Harris This week’s lectures and field work have revolved around the ways archaeology can fill the holes in our knowledge regarding the culture and personal lives of those enslaved in America. Thomas Jefferson’s views on slavery and his treatment of his own slaves have been well studied. But what was life like from […]


Jun 23, 2017

Archaeological Field School Week 2

By Savannah Weaver This week’s topic for the Field School students at Poplar Forest was material culture. Material culture deals with artifacts, landscapes, buildings, and even words, all of which have been shaped by humans as forms of expression. Artifacts tell us which items were commonly used in a specific time period, how they were […]


Jun 20, 2017

Field School 2017 Week One

By Adam Macbeth 2017 Summer Research Intern   Poplar Forest’s 2017 field school began on a rainy June 5th. The students spent the first day receiving a tour of the retreat house and lectures on proper field technique. Excavations began early on Tuesday morning with students eager to break ground.   The aim of this […]


May 9, 2017

Masonry Stoves of Thomas Jefferson

By J. Ogborne When Poplar Forest archaeologists excavated the area that had once been the kitchen in Jefferson’s Wing of Offices, they found two cast iron grates. The kitchen, and the Wing of Offices around it, had been demolished by the subsequent owners and replaced with two smaller and unconnected outbuildings to serve as cooking […]


Apr 7, 2017

Traces of Jefferson’s Time at Poplar Forest

By Karen E. McIlvoy Thomas Jefferson owned and designed many clocks and watches throughout his life; enough that his home at Monticello contains at least one in nearly every room. There is even an oral tradition that it was his practice to gift each of his children and grandchildren a pocket watch when they reached […]


Nov 3, 2016

Being Fussy Never Tasted So Sweet

It’s time to admit a difficult truth…archaeologists are not perfect. We are not omniscient and the artifacts we recover during excavation are sometimes misidentified. One of the many reasons why we continually reexamine our older archaeological collections is to rectify any gaffes and to reevaluate the data from a fresh perspective. Sometimes, we end up […]


Oct 7, 2016

Blowing Smoke: A Presidential Campaign at Poplar Forest

Anthropomorphic clay tobacco pipes, also sometimes called figural pipes or face pipes, were a popular type of commemorative souvenir in the nineteenth century. Pipe manufacturers often made pipes depicting the faces of famous political and cultural figures including George Washington, Queen Victoria, and Charlotte Bronte among many others. One particularly collectible subset of figural tobacco […]


Jul 22, 2016

Week 5 at Poplar Forest Archaeological Field School

By Lesley Jennings This week the field school students learned about the importance of public archaeology and the interaction between archaeologists and the public. Public archaeology uses various methods to educate visitors about a site and respect the historical peoples discussed. At Poplar Forest, experts use information gathered from their research to accurately and respectfully […]


Jul 22, 2016

Field School Week 6

By Ryan McDowell Six weeks, gone by in a blink of an eye, but time is strange like that.  Logically, standing outside in the hot sun all day, digging up thick red clay, or bent over screening it should be a grueling task that does not go by quickly, but when you surrounded by wonderful […]


Jun 27, 2016

Week 3 at Poplar Forest Archaeological Field School

By Logan Barger June 20th began the third week of archaeology field school at Poplar Forest, in which students gained an introduction into the field of Landscape and Environmental archaeology.  Landscape archaeology is the study of the ways in which people shaped and were shaped by the world in which they lived over time.  By […]


Jun 22, 2016

Field School 2016

by Caitlyn Johnson, Summer Research Intern Monday June 6 marked the start of the 2016 Poplar Forest Archaeology Field School. This year’s field work focuses on what is possibly a slave quarter from the 1830’s to 1850’s. The site was discovered during archaeological survey work conducted in preparation for building a new visitor entrance and access […]


Feb 4, 2016

Servant Bells at Poplar Forest

Servant bells, also called house bells, are systems of wire and pulleys that run throughout a building and allow a resident to call for a servant from the far reaches of the building without leaving the room they are in. The earliest record of mounted house bells was in a 1727 inventory of the Great […]