Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

“It All Began, Like So Many Things, With An Egg,” An Analysis Of The Avian Fauna And Eggshell Assemblage From A 19th Century Enslaved African American Subfloor Pit, Poplar Forest, Virginia., Kathryn Elizabeth Lamzik

Masters Theses

During the 2003-2004 archaeological investigations at Thomas Jefferson’s Poplar Forest Plantation, a small, subfloor pit feature was discovered on the Southeast Terrace, in an area well known for its historical connection to the plantation’s 19^th century enslaved African American laborers. Among the collected artifacts, the subfloor pit feature yielded over 33,000 faunal materials; not included in this calculated total are several thousand eggshell fragments. Although eggshell and avian faunal materials continue to be an understudied, peripheral component to faunal analyses, this thesis aims to show how, based on a few selected measurements and morphological variations observed in eggshell structure, …