c-span, >> -- >> c-span, were history unfolds daily. 1970 nine, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the supreme court, and public policy events in washington dc and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider. thomas jefferson force in lynchburg, virginia. we are learning about the history. we speak with the archaeology department to learn about the material culture left behind and what it can tell us about the people who lived here. we have been using archaeology to help understand the lives and landscape of the different residents of this historic national landmark.

i am the director of archaeology and landscapes. we have in our laboratory a small collection of a much larger collection of artifacts that we recovered from almost 30 years of excavation. we used archaeology to understand thomas jefferson's landscape,derstand the houses he designed. we are also using it as the lives of enslaved people. when jefferson received the plantation, it was already a working plantation. it was large in size, but there is only a handful of enslaved people living and working here. overtime, jefferson started to increase the labor force by moving other slaves on the property, engaging them with growing tobacco and wheat. almost 100 enslaved people working here. some of the artifacts we recovered from the places they

lived tell us about their lives and professions. and activities they were engaged in. a couple of the tools that were wereered from a site enslaved people were living between 1790 and 1812 includes a cruise iron, part of a tool used to make barrels. it cuts the groove into the top of barrels. used by ave an anvil blacksmith to bend metal and put groups in metal. also, the hinge of a carpenter's ruler. a carpenter living nearby. other aspects of the enslaved individuals, we can look through some of the other objects. is a silveravorites

spanish riel. it is a silver coin, you will notice it has a hole punched in it. the type of object we often find context, where african-americans were drinking up reflective objects -- objectsng up reflective to ward off malevolent forces. we know from interviews done in the 1930's that this was often done to place around the next of children to allow them to soothe the teething. wo bite object, it has t marks. we get to see an enslaved child here. we don't often see things like

this looking get the documentary records. we have names of people, but we don't know a lot about their personal lives. that's one of the reasons archaeology is so important. it gives us insight into the hidden lives of the people living here. fact that were the have thomas jefferson. taking a look at some of the artifacts associated with his life. some of the things we often artifacts thate were excavated from around the kitchen. the ceramic i am holding is part of a series of ceramics. we recovered numerous fragments of plates, platters, and saucers from this. -- saucers from this period.

there are so many different pieces to these patterns that tie directly to thomas jefferson. the things he is thinking about in general. it images ons on educational buildings in the cities of oxford and cambridge. and this one is a neoclassical dome rotunda. abouts to his thinking it. there is an educational building. there is an octagonal border that goes around, which ties into the shape of the main house. purchasingsn't just any objects to put into this house. he is thinking about the things that go on his table. how do they reflect his athletic

and the things he fancies? other objects we recovered, particularly around the main ndled, include a bone ha green to has been dyed imitate jade. used to serveass, a dessert. you start to get a sense of what was on the table here. we also can't forget that in and around the house were enslaved people that made his life possible your. an object we found include these fragments, part of a bell system that ran from the house and into jefferson's office. it is a reminder that at the touch of a cord he could summon

an enslaved person to him somewhere in the house. thomas jefferson designed a landscape that surrounds the main house that drew from elements he picked up through his travels and things he had been reading about all his life. he turned to english landscapes, plucking elements from them and putting them into the landscape. he did more than that, he blended together architecture and landscape design. the element that shows that is the two mounds that flank the house. of were created when slave lawn andg out a the dirt was piled up to create these mounds. jefferson is using a landscape element to stand in the

pavilions as part of a palladium design. he took that one step further and planted weeping willow trees and surrounded the base with has been trees. he was selecting vegetation selecting trees for their growing habits. the willow trees, round and mounding, stand in as a dome. as therees stand in columns. he is creating a neoclassical dome rotunda out of dirt and trees. that is part of the landscape here. grove of trees in front of the house. jindal chronology that we have done suggest that they date to around the time the house was being constructed. the sunken lawn was planted with

rows of flowering shrubs. we have done excavations to find where these are located, we have the original planting. doing what heeen referred to as clumps of trees. we were able to find these trees that are no longer there. rotation, you can see how he designed these elements. collimation of techniques to figure out this landscape. excavation is one of them. we expect pollen from the soil to look at what types of plants are growing in and around this area. we can get the chemistry of the

soil to see that these beds were fertilized in this way. we get an amazing amount of detail on what this property looked like in jefferson's time. we take that knowledge and are able to restore the elements. we are in the process of doing that now. this is a long-term process. one of the things we are working on is to research -- restore his carriage circle on the house. the circle was 80 feet in diameter and was originally paved with a single layer of obblely packed quartz c collected by slave laborers and pressed into the clay subsoil. we are looking for the best way to restore that so visitors get a sense of what it looked like. we are hoping to engage in that in the next couple of years. when visitors come, they will walk across a surface that looks

like what jefferson would have 1812. on top of and about it is a long-term process. years left to go many questions left to understand from landscape design to understanding the lives of enslaved individuals. it is a pleasure to be part of that program here at poplar forest. our cities tour staff travel to lynchburg, virginia to learn about its rich history. learn more about lynchburg, and other stops on our tour at c-span.org/cities tour. you are watching american history tv all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. next on "the presidency," an

explanation of the relationship forged between ronald reagan and george h.w. bush, and with care warpage of during the final years of the civil -- cold war. scholars were convened looking at the complicated history between u.s. and russian leaders over the last century. the discussions included assessments of franklin d roosevelt, jfk, and bill clinton, as well as their russian counterparts. this is about one hour and 20 minutes. >> we have a great panel. philip's elco is going to -- -- he's elco is going to has written a terrific book on the end of the cold war, the principal author of 9/11 commission. many other books. he is in the midst of writing a terrific book on decisions for war in ways