Combating Climate Change at the Travis (44JC0900) Site

Summary

This is a poster submission presented at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The Travis site (44JC0900), located on Jamestown Island in James City County Virginia, is a Colonial era plantation site, and is one of many historic and indigenous sites in danger of inundation due to land subsidence and climate change-driven sea level rise. Those climate change effects pose threats to the site’s integrity. The project is focused on understanding the daily habits and livelihoods of the enslaved Africans who lived on the property. The evidence found at the Travis site demonstrates the many challenges and brutal conditions faced by the enslaved Africans and African Americans there as well as the tools they used to survive and overcome them. Material culture associated with labor performed by African Americans has been recovered at the site, and the archeological team is working to interpret that evidence before it is erased by climate change.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025   •
• 2025 SHA Poster Submissions

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow