[Renfield]

"The Spaniards often treated the Natives very badly, and when the local people did not accede to their demands, de Soto would usually take the local leader hostage until he got his way," said Jeffrey Mitchem, a de Soto scholar with the Arkansas Archeological Survey, who was not involved in the discoveries.

"Usually their demands for food and young women wore out their welcome very quickly," Mitchem said, "so the natives were almost always trying to make them leave as rapidly as possible."

[Renfield]

Conquistador ping.

[icwhatudo]

“”For an Indian in the South 500 years ago, things like glass beads and iron tools might as well have been iPhones,” said project leader Dennis Blanton, an independent archaeologist who until recently was Fernbank’s staff archaeologist.”

The PC police will be all over him.

[Rudder]

Ischisi "Indians" watching DeSota crossing Georgia's Ocmulgee River.

[aruanan]

Conquistador Was Deep in U.S.: "Stunning" Jewelry Find Redraws Route?

Geez, haven't these guys read Naufragios y Commentarios by Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca?

[mewzilla]

Why does it have to have been from a gift exchange? Why couldn't the stash have been booty?

[silverleaf]

where is this site located?

[muawiyah]

Good find. The Ayllon colonial thrust involved a peculiar situation ~ right off the bat they lost half the ships, horses, cows, pigs, chickens and men ~ they immediately went deep inland.

When you read about the event and try to match this body of Spaniards up against Midwestern or Tennessee Valley sites/events you can see there was a possibility they could have simply gone due West, past the Southernmost point of the Appalachians, and then gone North to the Ohio (then believed to be the upper Mississippi), crossed over and founded some sort of "La Villa Real" in a defensible area in Southern Indiana or Ohio.

Take a good look at Laurel Indiana some time ~ There's a Spanish town layout in the core. It's up on the Indiana escarpment, and has access to the Whitewater river (which takes you to the Ohio) and to the Miami river a few miles further which also takes you to the Ohio.

This place was abandoned when the first English settlers came to the area, and stayed abandoned until the 1830s or so.

I suspect there's a map somewhere with all these places the Spaniards settled at marked.

The Ayllon colony could very well have gotten to this area ahead of the great drought of of the 1560 to 1600 period ~ and prospered in some manner. They would have been equipped with tools and knowledge to build grist mills and distilleries. Alcohol could get you a lot of furs and gold.

Remember, there were NO FRENCH in this region until AFTER 1604 and they seem to have not had any maps. All their riverine expeditions were NEW STUFF to them. When De Soto came in 1541 he had information about where he wanted to go ~ there were sources that could have been in place for two decades!

[SMARTY]

“Many of the specific types of artifacts that have been found at [Glass Site] are the same types recovered from other sites that were contacted by the Hernando de Soto expedition,”

Deserters? Pissibly. But, I guess researchers and the author didn't consider that the Indians killed the explorers elsewhere and stole this stuff...then bringing it to the excavation site.

[bunkerhill7]

I had a`57 red n` white De Soto Bomb;

never made it to Georgia,-it was a jewel-

used to drag race it

on the straightaways-
It could fly!

[blueunicorn6]

The Spanish meet the Chinese in North America.

[Interesting Times]

De Soto ping.

[ClearCase_guy]

This is from wikipedia, and apparently based on a 1997 map.
So what's new?

[bert]

the fact a Spanish artifact was found does not necessarily mean De Soto. French from Ft Caroline and the Spaniards who followed ventured deeply in to the interior.

As desoto scholar finds desoto stuff in the manner to a hammer, everything must be a nail

[colorado tanker]

De Soto became rich as one of Pizarro's captains from Incan loot. He hoped to duplicate the feat in the Floridas but never found his gold.