Poole, Meredith Guest Oral History

Scope and content:

In the following oral history, Meredith Poole, a Staff Archaeologist with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, discusses how discovering a fossil in her backyard at an early age sparked her passion for archaeology. She also cites numerous educators, from her elementary school teacher to a professor with whom Poole traveled to Belize for a semester abroad, as inspiratory figures in the initial development of her almost 39-year career. Poole explains how working on the 1985 excavation of the Shields Tavern site while completing her Master's Thesis for her MA in Anthropology from William & Mary helped to both ground her roots in the Williamsburg community and provide her with invaluable on-the-ground skills, such as appreciating the value of minute details and archeological storytelling, that would become central in her later work. She discusses her contributions to the 2022 excavation of the First Baptist Church Cite as among her proudest projects, describing the uncovering of such a personal history for the descendant community as a fulfilling process that exemplifies the value of archaeology. Poole also explains how she balanced her dual interests in fieldwork and obligations as a public-facing archaeologist with the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, recalling as paramount her skills in creative writing and community development. She advises future archaeologists to focus on a specialized field of research that interests them and communicate the relevant knowledge in ways that the general public can understand and appreciate. Williamsburg Documentary Project students Caleb Fulford and Abigail Swanberg conducted the interview on February 20, 2024, at 2:00 pm with a Zoom H4N and DGI microphones provided by graduate student Molly Robinson. Fulford, Swanberg, and indexer Natalie Lopez reference the class assignment involving the interview in AMST 410: Williamsburg Documentary Project, taught by Professor Michelle Lelièvre.

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Location of collection:
College of William and Mary
Special Collections Research Center
Earl Gregg Swem Library
College of William and Mary
400 Landrum Drive
PO 8795
Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795
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