LAY OF THE LAND

Historical Archaeology At Monticello

Archaeologists study material culture to learn about the past. Historians use written documents to tell the story of the past. More and more, these two disciplines are coming together to give us a greatly enhanced picture of earlier times. In this issue of American Archaeology, we take a look at Thomas Jefferson, founding father and third president, and life on his sprawling plantation home, Monticello. (See “Reading Jefferson’s Landscape,” page 20.)

Historical archaeologists, using painstaking fieldwork and historical documents, are discovering important new details about life at Monticello, especially among the 120 or so slaves plus indentured servants and hired hands that made the plantation function. Until recently most of these people were invisible, but new research is bringing new insights as to how they lived and worked.

Beginning in 1790, Jefferson shifted the plantation from growing tobacco to growing wheat for export to Europe. Housing for the slaves changed, with homes becoming more dispersed on hillsides, suggesting that the slaves became more autonomous. More skilled labor to maintain draft animals and tools was required, and all this left behind traces in the archaeological record. The shift from tobacco to wheat also coincided with an increase in the material wealth of slaves. Excavations revealed more and better domestic goods.

Historical archaeology is a relatively new sub-field, but it is already showing at Monticello and elsewhere that it can tell us much more than the disciplines of archaeology and history alone can. The Conservancy is working to preserve important historic sites, and we can look forward to many new developments in this emerging discipline that will enrich our understanding of the past.

Mark Michel, President