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DHC Discovery Series with Middleton Place Foundation

by | Mar 11, 2025 | Upcoming Events & News

We’re excited to share our Discovery Series talk with the Middleton Place Foundation on March 20!

This Discovery Series event features Jeff Sherard from Brockington and Associates. We will hear a discussion on the Inland Lowcountry indigenous experience along Charleston’s western frontier. Read more about Jeff Sherard below.

Participants will learn about artifacts related to the Carolina Colony’s initial founding and how they help to describe the Indigenous experience during the colonization and its connections to the Inland Lowcountry. We will also talk about the structure of the developing plantation systems and how native groups were involved.

Jeff Sherard, Laboratory Director at Brockington and Associates, Inc. and Member-At-Large, Archaeological Society of South Carolina. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology from the University of Alabama. In 2024 he presented Participants and Presence Along Charleston’s Frontier: Examining a Late 17th Century Indigenous Occupation at Percival’s Weston Hall at the Southeastern Archaeological Conference, in Williamsburg, VA and among his current research interests are Low-Fired Earthenware/Colonoware Analysis and Lowcountry Plantation Systems.

The talk runs from 6-7 pm on March 20. Tickets are free and this event is open to the public. Advanced registration is required.

Get your tickets here. 

 
Our guest speaker, Jeff Sherard, will highlight two significant Indigenous sites in Dorchester County: Andrew Percival’s Weston Plantation and the Laurel Hill Plantation.
 
Andrew Percival’s Weston Hall:
 
-Based on extensive archaeological and historical research, we interpret site 38DR87 as representing Andrew Percival’s late 17th-century Weston Hall.
-In 1674, Percival was appointed to oversee trade with Indigenous groups.
-During excavations, Brockington documented a large artifact assemblage consisting of late 17th-century trade artifacts from a series of pit features.
-These features are interpreted as temporary Indigenous encampments utilized during periodic native trading expeditions to Weston Hall.
 
Laurel Hill Plantation:
 
-The Laurel Hill Plantation site in southern Dorchester County, South Carolina, suggests an early 19th-century Settlement Indian occupation.
-These indigenous groups were forced to adapt and utilize new strategies to cope with the onslaught of European colonization.
-Additionally, Brockington documented a late 17th to early 18th-century glass bead sample from the site. By evaluating them in connection with other artifact classes, they interpret these beads as representing multigenerational, passed-down heirloom objects that serve as visual cues of remembrance.