Archaeology

Archaeologists use diverse bits of evidence to learn more about how people shaped the landscape of Mount Vernon, and in turn how the landscape shaped the interactions of people with each other.

This evidence is incredibly diverse in form and age. Everything from a building foundation to a small seed bead used to adorn a dress, a several thousand-year-old stone tool to coins dropped by a tourist twenty years ago, can be encountered by our staff on a daily basis.

But large or small, ancient or new, each piece of evidence is valuable as a window into a moment in time.

Mount Vernon’s archaeological holdings are an extremely valuable resource for understanding the long history of humans in the Chesapeake region of the United States.

A professional archaeological survey conducted in 1984 identified dozens of archaeological sites, and over a hundred locations of archaeological interest, throughout the property. Artifacts from these sites provide evidence of human lifeways from the Early Archaic period (beginning ca. 8,000 B.C.E.) through the modern day. Of course, many of these sites are particularly important for the study of eighteenth-century plantation life in the Chesapeake.

Major excavations include the house for families slave quarter, slave cemetery, Washington’s Distillery, the south grove midden, and the upper garden.