Archaeology at Coan Hall The Coan Hall site is located on a tributary to the Potomac River on Virginia’s Northern Neck. Our project explores the landscape of an early British colonial plantation through documenting and interpreting cultural and environmental changes, and studying them in the context of broader changes in the region and the wider Atlantic world. Site and Project History John Mottrom, one of the earliest English settlers of the Potomac’s south bank, established a household at Coan Hall sometime before 1644. The property quickly became the center of the Chicacoan community who took their name from the principal village of an important Indian chiefdom. Some of the English Chicacoans participated in the uprising known as Ingle’s Rebellion, which resulted in the overthrow of Cecil Calvert’s Maryland government in the mid1640s. Mottrom helped arm the rebel faction. He was elected to the House of Burgesses, and his property became the legislative seat for Northumberland County, the first English county on the Northern Neck. Mottrom was one of the earliest planters in the Potomac Valley to use enslaved African labor. Elizabeth Key, a woman whom he attempted to enslave, contested her status in court and won her freedom following his death in 1655. Subsequently his son and grandson developed the property, expanded the labor force, and contributed to the troubled political, racial, and economic currents of the second half of the 17th century. Excavations from 2011 to 2017 exposed portions of the 21.5 ft. x 54 ft. manor house. The house consists of a minimum of two rooms on either side of a masonry H-shaped chimney. The house was earthfast (built with posts set directly into the ground), repaired with new posts, and later underpinned with brick. A large brick-and-stone-lined basement extends beneath the western room, and was accessed via a bulkhead entrance on the building’s west gable end. The archaeological and geophysical results hint at a complex landscape that developed across the six acres that surround the house. The remains of at least three outbuildings have been located north of the house. Evidence of fence lines or palisades and additional as-yet-unidentified anomalies were found during excavations and via the 2015-2017 geophysical survey of the site. In 2018, excavations will focus on establishing the chronology and use of outbuildings within the manor’s curtilage, on tracing evidence of an early fence line that may predate the manor house, and if time permits, on exploring additional features associated with the manor Artifacts and Ecofacts Mottrom’s household and the households of his heirs used a wide variety of imported European ceramic and glass vessels, ball clay tobacco pipes, architectural materials, and personal items. There are also substantial numbers of Indian pot and tobacco pipe fragments and some stone tools at the site. We have collected hundreds of flotation and waterscreen samples that contain rich botanical remains including introduced European grains and fruits, such as apples and peaches, and a wide variety of native edible herbs and berries, corn, and tobacco. Faunal remains are dominated by cow and pig, but also include sheep/goat, chicken, white tailed deer, raccoon, squirrel, turtle, and bony fish. Domesticated cat and dog bones have also been found. Images Photogrammetry scan - see the 3D model in Sketchfab Research Papers About Coan Hall Research Please follow us on Facebook Archaeology Digital Data Anthropology Department. Knoxville TN 37918 • Email: mfreem12@utk.edu