Episode 405
The First, Lost Colony

If you'd always thought that Roanoke Island was the first known European colony, or settlement, in North Carolina, you’d be wrong. South Carolina Archeologist Chester DePratter worked with David Moore of Warren Wilson College to locate Fort San Juan in the foothills of the Appalachians near Morganton, NC. This Spanish outpost (1566 and 1567), was established two decades prior to the famous settlement known as “The Lost Colony” at Roanoke Island. Fort San Juan may also be the site of the first European settlement in the interior of North America.

In this episode, join Archeologists David Moore, Robin Beck and Chris Rodning have, with an extraordinary team, as they reveal numerous, unearthed artifacts demonstrating the presence of Spanish Soldiers on a tributary of the Catawba River. Exploring North Carolina is privileged to visit the archeologists on-site and interview them at the location of Fort San Juan. Their discoveries have the potential of rewriting the history of European settlement in North America.