Free Republic

For centuries, a legend has persisted across the Ozarks. Lore holds marauding Spaniards once discovered a rich silver deposit within a cave somewhere in the hills, and then sealed it shut for future mining. Several variations of the tale are told, but one notion is constant, the treasure is said to still remain hidden. Many people in South-Central Missouri have searched for this fabled lost silver mine. Some went empty-handed to their graves after a lifetime of digging. Others got so far as thinking they found the site, and even had their ore tested at Missouri S&T. However, no great...

It's believed to be the largest battle between Europeans and Native Americans north of the Rio Grande, but the city of Mabila remains lost... A team of historians, archeologists and geologists have come to the University of Alabama for three days to study the battle.. Their aim, though, isn't to find the city, but to compile everything known, for possible future excavations, said Jim Knight, a UA anthropology professor who helped organize the conference... Finding Mabila means addressing a host of problems ranging from suspect accounts of De Soto's expedition to the possibility that modern dams may have flooded the...

It was the bloodiest battle ever fought between Europeans and Native Americans on North American soil. It changed the course of history. And yet, after more than a century of theories, research and argument, the path of Spanish conquistador Hernando De Soto and the site of his watershed battle at Mabila remain mysteries buried somewhere in Alabama soil. During a conference that ends today at the University of Alabama, a team of folklorists and historians, archaeologists and linguists, geographers and geologists are once more poring over the evidence. They're using new technology and new insights in hopes of pinning down...