Contextualizing the Exceptional: Understanding "Small Find" Abundance at The Hermitage

Summary

The archaeological program at The Hermitage was exceptional in many ways, from the breadth and depth of its archaeological education programs and the square footage excavated across the plantation to the range of domestic slave housing types and diversity of artifacts found within and around these dwellings. The richness and diversity of "small finds" across Hermitage sites is particularly striking. Previous studies of Hermitage small finds have focused on individual artifacts as representations of "Africanism" or used groups of small finds to argue for specialized occupations within specific housing areas.  Here we use the exceptional abundance of small finds to tackle two questions: What is the threshold for when small finds are common enough to be broken down into standalone analytical units, with which one can perform meaningful quantitative analyses? What new insights do these small-finds groups tell us the strategies used by enslaved individuals at The Hermitage?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2018   •
• The Past, Present, and Future of Archaeological Research at The Hermitage: Legacies of Larry McKee and Sam Smith

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 969