Washington and Lee University
The Washington and Lee University Department of Sociology and Anthropology is delighted to announce a new archaeological research collaborative with the Department of Archaeological Research at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.
In spring 2009, W&L will hold its six-credit “dig” – the archaeological field methods course – at Monticello excavating the house site of Jefferson’s overseer, Edmund Bacon (c. 1806-1822). The course will be co-taught by Dr. Alison Bell, assistant professor of anthropology/archaeology, and W&L’s new staff archaeologist (soon to be announced). Monticello staff including Dr. Sara Bon-Harper, archaeological research manager, will also work in the field with W&L students as they learn state-of-the-art methods of archaeological excavation, recording, analysis, and interpretation.
The W&L field school is part of a larger research venture with Monticello and its Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS, http://www.daacs.org/). DAACS is an on-line database containing detailed information about archaeological sites occupied by enslaved Africans in Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, and the Caribbean. In coming years, W&L students and archaeologists will excavate sites occupied by non-elite European Americans in the same areas and periods. These efforts will enable researchers to learn more about race and class dynamics in the early United States by comparing the daily lives of enslaved blacks and non-elite whites. W&L and Monticello archaeologists will enter all results of the archaeological research into DAACS and make it accessible via the internet not only to researchers and students at W&L, but also to the members of the public throughout the world.
