Posted on 07/26/2013 2:26:13 PM PDT by Renfield
Before there was Jamestown and even before there was Roanoke, there was Spain's Fort San Juan, in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina.
Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of the fort built by gold-hunting Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century and say it's the oldest European garrison ever found in the interior of the United States.
The settlement around Fort San Juan was occupied for less than two years and it met a rather bloody end likely brought on by the Spaniards' botched bartering for food and their sexual transgressions with Native American women. But the short-lived fort's traces serve as a reminder of how different U.S. history might have been if Spain had been more successful in its early colonial campaigns.....
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
There are early accounts about the settlers at Jamestown looking for this Spanish enclave. I don’t remember, but either they never found it, or they found it abandoned. They did know about it.
For those of us with gold pans and that live in the area (150 miles)...... Where are you talking about
The French founded a colony at Mayport Florida in 1686 or so called Fort Caroline. They also sent parties into the interior looking for gold. They came into East Tennessee.
What they found was copper. The Indians that traded in the region could not really distinguish between copper they had seen and gold that was merely described to them
Lekson’s rule applies....... distance is not a problem
US 221 between Marion & Rutherfordton.
This is one of the places. There’s also a campground north of there where folks live & pan in the warmer weather.
Oddly, I searched Lekson’s rule and the fifth entry that came up on google was the message I’m here responding to. Forgive my ignorance, but what’s Lekson’s rule?
Very interesting about the French fort and about the copper and gold.
So early peaceful “native Americans” murdered all the Spanish.
He sets forth three rules.
Everybody knew everything
Distance is not a problem
There is no coincidence
I've been acquainted with David Moore, the archaeologist on this project, for 30 years.
The story I heard from him was that local lore told that a fort used to be in the area but no one knew exactly where. The Berry family bought the land for farming and discovered some European origin artifacts in the fields decades ago. The younger generation of that family are the ones who narrowed down a possible location for the fort and allowed access for the archaeologists to got it to where it is today.
Thanks. Interesting. So he’s not a diffusionist then?
Well maybe......
I never heard of the term but
Everybody knew everything means there was communication and trade between the southwestern cultures.
Distance was no object means the people on the Colorado plateau knew well the people on the Gila river at Phoenix. Ditto the contemporaries in Cahokia far east and those who dwell in the western coastal region of Mexico.
There is no coincidence means that incidence here and there is because was trade and communication
All the above does not mean there were differences.
Lekson likes to take on such terms as diffusion and shred the theory. The reason I like him is his courage and ability to let the air out of academic baloons
——All the above does not mean there were differences.——
should be
All the above does not mean there were not differences.
I’m assuming the writer meant “goggles”.
Interesting. Thanks. I’m looking forward to reading more. I think what he’s saying makes sense. The black drink’s residue was found in cups far from the regions it was native to - Cahokia, Woodhenge, which is far from coastal south Florida.
Years ago, say 1925 or so, my uncle’s brother was plowing his field on the banks of the Clinch River in Union county Tennessee. I helped him to discover what it was worth and did some reading. It was a Celt, a wonderfully crafted stone ax. I learned that celts were found at other locations on the Clinch.
In May of 2012 we visited Cahokia where there is a great museum. there were several exhibits with celts. One was concerned with two celt factories...... places where tons of celts were discovered. Some were damaged and it was believed they were being sharpened. To my eye, they were identical to the one found on the Clinch River. They seemed to be the same bluegray stone
The conclusion was the folks on the Clinch in East Tennessee had something to trade for celts with the folks at Cahokia.
Lekson’s rules apply
We find chert flint points in front of my parents place. The closest source is 150 miles away.
Do you know about the Eastern Agricultural Complex? Not just the black drink is part of it, but things like relatives of the quinoa now becoming popular, which is from South America originally. There is a list of cultivated varieties of plants now just growing as weeds, that seem to be from a culture there that only existed in fragments when British colonists were settling in.
What a peculiar history. What is your source, the Catholic Encyclopedia?
And, what about the Franciscans themselves as far as indian women? One of my legendary ancestors is Opechancanough, half brother of Powhatan, he was fathered by a Spanish missionary.
There are many more photos of the fort http://www.flickr.com/photos/87167906@N02/sets/72157634563089753/with/9250381904
There actually is gold in North Carolina, although the Spanish didn’t discover it. Before the Civil War there was a branch US mint in N.C.
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