Fairfield Foundation, Inc.

Read our most recent blog! Join us in putting archaeology in the palm of your hand.  We are pioneering the process of printing archaeological sites and using them to connect people with the past.  We need your help to buy a Fusion3 3D-printer and plastic print material to produce our archaeological model for classrooms across our region.  We have successfully printed a prototype of a portion of the site, receiving great reviews from teachers and students alike.  We have outgrown our trusty MakerBot Replicator+, and a Fusion3 would help us print additional, larger pieces of the model more accurately and efficiently. 

The mission of the Fairfield Foundation is to promote and involve the public in hands-on archaeology, preservation and education activities within Virginia's Middle Peninsula and surrounding areas.  Our goals are to educate and involve people of all ages in the process of archaeological and historical research, to provide outreach to students and the general public about historic landscapes of this region, and to encourage discussion, research, collaboration and the preservation of our historic resources, including buildings, archaeological sites, historic documents and oral history. This project promotes our mission by creating an accurate and realistic model of the Fairfield archaeological site. The model can be excavated, layer by layer, replicating the process of discovery archaeologists encounter every day.  

The Foundation was founded in 2000 to undertake a long-term archaeological and historical investigation of Fairfield plantation, from its origins in the 1640s to its demise at the close of the 19th century. The foundation is documenting the complex history and landscape evolution of this major plantation and the individuals who lived there, while using this information and the archaeological process to engage with students, scholars and the general public in a meaningful and exciting dialog about the importance of our community's heritage. This includes charting how the plantation grew, developed, and divided, and studying the people who owned and worked on the land from its beginnings as a tobacco plantation, through its post-Civil War division into small farms and an African-American community. The foundation involves the public in its work, to disseminate new historical research and information, and encourage the preservation and recognition of a wide range of the community's heritage resources.