2022 Field School Week Four

By Jackson DeWitt

Week 4 of the Poplar Forest field school was one of the most exciting yet! We started out the week by expanding two of the test pits we’d excavated into larger 5x5ft units, in an effort to explore some of the more interesting features and artifacts we’d found. In these units, we found ceramics, glass, brick, and all sorts of other interesting objects!

We ended the week with an exciting trip to the Tidewater, where we got a chance to meet with the archaeologists at Colonial Williamsburg and Historic Jamestown. They showed us some of the things they’ve been uncovering, and taught us about the techniques and technologies they use to learn more about the past, from ground-penetrating radar to genetic analysis of recovered remains.

It was a fascinating week, but we’ve still got a lot more to do. We’ll aim to dig deeper into our units next week, in the hopes of learning more about the site we’ve found!