Following the conquest of the Aztecs in Mexico and the Inka in South America, Spain looked to "La Florida" for more land and riches. Hernando de Soto and his army traveled from Florida through North Carolina in 1540 on their way to the Mississippi River. In 1566, Juan Pardo left the Spanish town of St. Elena on the South Carolina coast and traveled into North Carolina in search of an overland route to Mexico. Scholars have debated the routes of Soto and Pardo for years but archaeological investigations at the Berry site (31BK22), north of Morganton in Burke County, provide evidence that both of these Spanish expeditions passed through the Catawba River valley.

The Berry site is a large (nearly 12 acres) Mississippian site that dates to the Burke phase (15th and 16th centuries A.D.) and is believed to represent an ancestral Catawba Indian town. We believe this site to be the location of the native town of Joara, at which Pardo built Fort San Juan in 1567 (20 years before the English "Lost Colony" at Roanoke). The 2012 archaeology field school will concentrate on a one-acre area where 16th century Spanish artifacts and the remains of five burned buildings have been located. We believe these structures may represent the remains of the Spanish compound, Forst San Juan. Pardo also renamed the Native settlement Cuenca, after his hometown in Spain. Quenca and Fort San Juan represent the earliest European settlement in the interior of what is now the United States. Participants in the 2012 field school will work to map and excavate the area round one of these burned buildings.

You may view images from the 2001-2011 field schools at the Berry site at our web page: www.warren-wilson.edu/~arch/fieldschool

Dr. David Moore and Dr. Chris Rodning will lead the Summer 2012 archaeology field school at the Berry site. David Moore conducted investigations at the Berry site in 1986, 1995, 1997, and 2001-2010. He has directed numerous field schools since 1978 at the Warren Wilson site (31BN29) and other sites in western North Carolina. His book entitled, Catawba Valley Mississippian: Ceramics, Chronology, and Catawba Indians, has been published by the University of Alabama Press. David received his MA and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and served as the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology's Western Office archaeologist for 18 years before becoming a full-time faculty member at Warren Wilson College.

Registration Information