Spanish fort discovered in Morganton, NC

[bluedigger]

Before the Lost Colony at Roanoke Island, before the Jamestown settlement in Virginia, there was Fort San Juan in the North Carolina foothills.

Archaeologists studying a ceremonial mound from a Native American town called Joara last month discovered the first inland fort built by Europeans in the New World, near present-day Morganton.

For nearly three decades, researchers worked at what’s known as the Berry archaeological site, certain it could reveal clues about the presence of one of six Spanish forts from the 16th century. But they lacked the evidence for any of the fortifications until now.

The discovery “solidifies our interpretation that we have found Joara and Fort San Juan,” said David Moore, an archaeologist at Warren Wilson College near Asheville and a co-director of the 27-year excavation project.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/07/23/4184813/spanish-fort-unexpectedly-discovered.html#storylink=cpy

I worked with one of the lead researchers mentioned, Rob Beck, in the early '90's. He's been looking for evidence of this fort for a long time.

[Judi Lynn]

1. Looks as if your friend was right in suspecting this fort has been there.

What a jolt they would get if someone discovered next that there has been gold there from the first!

Had no idea the Spanish would-be conquistadores went that far north and inland in the South Eastern part of the country.

Thanks for opening the door for us who never knew about this stage in US American history.

It would be great if they made more information available to the public as it is discovered.

It's good to think there was a moment, however brief, when the citizens who were already here still felt they had a say in their part of the world after the Europeans decided they were taking over and everyone had to get out of their way quickly or die painfully.

[bluedigger]

2. It really would have changed history had the Spanish kept their foothold.

It is a very interesting and little known chapter in the European conquest of the Americas. The indigenous population won the battle, but disease probably weakened them enough so that the English had an easier, if not trouble free, time of it a generation later. Had the Spanish found their gold I have no doubt they would have put enough resources in to achieve a lasting presence, with serious implications on the development of the English colonies and our present nation.

My friend had been talking about finding Spanish artifacts on a relative's property years ago, and he kept looking in the area throughout his time in grad school, and then after he started teaching himself. His perseverance was finally rewarded. I'm not aware of any published work on his previous discoveries, but now that they think they have confirmed one of the forts, the time seems ripe.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Oldest European fort in the inland US discovered in Appalachians

Public release date: 23-Jul-2013
Contact: Diane Swanbrow
[e-mail]
734-647-4416
University of Michigan

Oldest European fort in the inland US discovered in Appalachians


ANN ARBOR—The remains of the earliest European fort in the interior of what is now the United States have been discovered by a team of archaeologists, providing new insight into the start of the U.S. colonial era and the all-too-human reasons spoiling Spanish dreams of gold and glory.

Spanish Captain Juan Pardo and his men built Fort San Juan in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in 1567, nearly 20 years before Sir Walter Raleigh's "lost colony" at Roanoke and 40 years before the Jamestown settlement established England's presence in the region.

"Fort San Juan and six others that together stretched from coastal South Carolina into eastern Tennessee were occupied for less than 18 months before theNative Americans destroyed them, killing all but one of the Spanish soldiers who manned the garrisons," said University of Michigan archaeologist Robin Beck.

Beck, an assistant professor in the U-M Department of Anthropology and assistant curator at the U-M Museum of Anthropology, is working with archaeologists Christopher Rodning of Tulane University and David Moore of Warren Wilson College to excavate the site near the city of Morganton in western North Carolina, nearly 300 miles from the Atlantic Coast.

The Berry site, named in honor of the stewardship of landowners James and the late Pat Berry, is located along a tributary of the Catawba River and was the location of the Native American town of Joara, part of the mound-building Mississippian culture that flourished in the southeastern U.S. between 800 and about 1500 CE.

More:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-07/uom-oef072313.php

[bluedigger]

4. Another older piece on the houses.

http://archive.archaeology.org/0907/abstracts/north_carolina.html