Layers of History

As the Archaeology team continued excavations north of the piazza (in preparation for the Mansion Revitalization Project), they uncovered a fascinating record of the Mansion’s evolution over time. This “stratigraphic sequence” (seen below) details the construction history of the Mansion and adjacent landscape—including the addition of the New Room and construction of the piazza during the Mansion expansion of the 1770s.

As Mount Vernon Research Archaeologist Jason Boroughs explains, archaeologists read soil layers the way historians read the pages of a book. “Each human activity has impacted the ground in a certain way, and we’re trained at reading and interpreting what happened and when it happened,” he says. “This stratigraphic sequence almost reads like a history book, telling the story of Mount Vernon from Native American occupation to today.”