PENSACOLA ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY presents "Montpelier in 25 Artifacts: How We Use Objects to Tell Stories of the Past" by Mary Furlong Minkoff, Executive Director of the Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN).

Montpelier, located in Orange County, Virginia, is best known as the plantation home of James and Dolley Madison. However, today Montpelier is a modern museum that encompasses a historic landscape stretching across 2650 acres, includes nearly 200 standing historic structures and reconstructions, and a collection of art, furnishings, documents, and over 3 million archaeological artifacts.

In addition to this rich collection of historic and archaeological resources, Montpelier has become a leader in public archaeology and collaboration with the descendants of the enslaved in the preservation and interpretation of the past.

In this talk, Mary will demonstrate how archaeologists and museum professionals use objects and community relationships to tell complex, whole-truth histories of not only one plantation site but of the country as a whole.