Redefining Plantation Landscapes at James Monroe’s Highland: A Spatial Analysis of Yard Usage and Function

Summary

This is a poster submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Once the home of President James Monroe, Highland is an historic plantation located in the central Virginia Piedmont. However, the modern plantation landscape is the product not only of Monroe, but also its seven subsequent owners and the numerous free and enslaved individuals that inhabited it over the course of the 19th century. This complex occupational history combined with limited archaeological data have provided little evidence of Monroe’s original plantation or how its landscape was reshaped by subsequent occupants. Relying on recent archaeological survey dates from over 600 STPs, this poster begins to piece together the history of Highland’s landscape, focusing on yard spaces surrounding the plantation’s domestic core through statistical analysis of artifact type, density, and size. These data reveal two periods of spatial reorganization heavily influenced by changing economic strategies, political upheaval, and developing social context around Virginia plantations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• 2020 SHA Poster Submissions

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 1057