Research Symposium

BIO

Abbigail is a current first year student majoring in Classical Archaeology here at Florida State University. She grew up here in Tallahassee, is an avid reader, and loves doing research on local and international archaeological sites. While she hopes to get the opportunity to do field work, she is currently aiming for a career in teaching archaeology and anthropology.

Evergreen Plantation and the African Diaspora

Abstract

Founded in 1777, and located on the banks of the Mississippi, Louisiana’s Evergreen Plantation holds the distinction as the South’s most intact plantation complex, with 37 structures on the National Register of Historic Places. During the time when slavery was still legal in the United States, Evergreen had over 400 enslaved individuals living in its 22 cabins. The Evergreen Plantation Archaeological Survey, which began in 2018, is a study of the lives of those enslaved persons involving the excavation of Evergreen’s slave cabins and a potential religious structure associated with the cabins. This project focuses on the analysis of artifacts found during excavations during the Summer of 2021. The purpose of the project, overall, is to create a better understanding of the lives of Evergreen’s enslaved population and further educate the public on slavery and plantation life. Part of this understanding comes from the analysis of the ceramic materials excavated from the site, by typing and dating the artifacts collected.

Keywords: Humanities, archaeology, ceramics analysis