Plantation to house archaeology research

The Smithsonian Institution announced yesterday that it has purchased 575 acres of farmland in Anne Arundel County, including the ruins of a historic tobacco plantation, that will be turned into an archaeology research site the public can visit.

The roughly 300-year-old Contee Farm off Route 468 on the Rhode River will become part of the adjacent Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, which has been conducting studies into Chesapeake Bay ecology and other subjects for 43 years, officials said.