nedralee

On October 30, 2025, the Fiske Center for Archaeological Research at UMass Boston welcomed our partners Alice Clark and Donnamarie Barnes from the Sylvester Manor Educational Farm , along with Drs. Cleve Scott and Henderson Carter and several students from the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill Campus , for a day of collaboration, exchange, and celebration. The visit marked an important step in strengthening our ongoing partnership dedicated to advancing research on the...

Though 2025 field season at Sylvester Manor ended in the summer, our work at the New England African American Archeology Lab is far from over. First-year graduate students Alex and Micaela are currently busy in the lab, washing and processing the materials excavated this summer—part of the essential (if less glamorous) post-field phase of archaeological research. The artifacts they're handling were recovered from the North Lawn area of Sylvester Manor, an area with an intriguing feature...

This summer’s field season at Sylvester Manor continued our multi-year effort to understand how people shaped, lived, and labored across this historic landscape. While much of our previous work has focused on the Manor house and its surrounding areas, this season placed special emphasis on locating the homesite of David Hempstead Sr., a free Black man who served as the farm manager at Sylvester Manor. Another goal of this season’s work was to study the Afro-Indigenous Burial Ground to better...