Sweet Briar Celebrates Virginia Archaeology Month

Rainville to speak at Booker T. Washington NM Oct. 20

SUZANNE RAMSEY
College relations staff writer

Lynn Rainville

In October, Sweet Briar College will offer two events in celebration of Virginia Archaeology Month, an annual celebration coordinated by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

At 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 3, Lynn Rainville, assistant professor of anthropology and archaeology at Sweet Briar, will present a lecture titled, “A Sweet Survey: Archaeological Investigations at the Sweet Briar Plantation.”

Held in Tyson Auditorium, the lecture is free and open to the public.

Rainville will talk about a three-year archaeological survey of Sweet Briar Plantation, which is the present-day campus of Sweet Briar College. The antebellum farm was the home of College founder Indiana Fletcher Williams and includes barns, cabins, graveyards and other artifacts.

For more information, visit http://www.faculty.sbc.edu/lrainville/SBC/Survey07.html.

Throughout the month of October, children — and those young at heart — can search for history in a program titled, “Archaeological Letterboxing: Hunting for the Past on a Virginia Plantation.”

According to Wikipedia, letterboxing is “an outdoor hobby that combines elements of orienteering, art and puzzle solving.” Small boxes containing a stamp are hidden — in this case at historic sites on campus. When participants find the boxes they stamp a logbook as proof that they successfully followed the clues.

The activity is free and open to the public from 8 a.m. to dusk, seven days a week. For letterboxing clues, visit Rainville’s Web site http://www.faculty.sbc.edu/lrainville/SBC. Clues will be posted on Oct. 1.

Rainville also will give a talk about Virginia’s slave cemeteries at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 20, at the Booker T. Washington National Monument in Franklin County, Va. Admission is free. For more information and directions, visit http://www.wset.com/community/showevent.hrb?i=47649 or http://www.nps.gov/bowa/planyourvisit/calendar-of-events.htm.