Congratulations to Historic Preservation students Jessica Bittner and Robin Ramey who presented at the Archeological Society of Virginia Conference on October 12th. Despite a Sunday morning session attendance was high. The abstract for their presentation is posted below. Funding was in part made possible by the UMW Center for Historic Preservation.
A Progress Report on the Oval Site (44WM80), Stratford Hall Plantation
Jessica Bittner and Robin Ramey, University of Mary Washington
For several summer seasons the Department of Historic Preservation at the University of Mary Washington has sponsored an archaeological field school in cooperation with the Robert E. Lee Memorial Association at a mid-18th-century site at Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County. Known as the Oval Site because of its location within a modern, reconstructed landscape feature, the site contains four earthfast buildings and corresponds either to a plantation farm quarter or an overseer’s complex. Occupied until the end of the Revolutionary War era, the site was purposely demolished and the area was put to agricultural use as Stratford’s organization changed with succeeding Lee family generations and an altering Chesapeake economy. Research questions for the Oval site include determining its functional role within the plantation during an era of fundamental economic and cultural change, and comparing the lifestyles of its occupants, namely the households of an overseer, enslaved African Americans, and a combined kitchen-quarter arrangement.
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