Houses and Households at Monticello’s Site 8

Summary

The architectural remains of four houses have been recovered archaeologically on Monticello’s Site 8, home to enslaved field hands in the late-eighteenth century. Plowzone evidence hints at the existence of others. This paper brings together multiple lines of evidence to examine the degree of cooperation among residents of each house and among residents of different houses. We see this cooperation as an essential element defining households as distinct from co-resident domestic groups. Plowzone assemblages provide a fine-grained framework for measuring change in the amount of functional and stylistic variation among assemblages. Spatial patterning in artifact size reveals how enslaved residents shared in the maintenance of exterior space. Variation among sub-floor pits addresses the extent to which they shared storage space. Using multiple lines of evidence allows us to assess the extent to which cooperation and sharing among residents varied across different domains.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Tearing Down Walls: The Architecture of Household Archaeology   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2013

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 460