Discovery at Fountain of Youth has historical military significance

Historic City News has reported over the last several years that Dr. Kathleen Deagan, Distinguished Research Curator of Archaeology and Adjunct Professor of Anthropology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, has been conducting research at the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park in St Augustine.

The Florida Department of Military Affairs and the Florida National Guard have been collecting soil samples from around the state, and around the world, at locations where Florida Guard members have fought; and, moved by recent discoveries at the Park, on Wednesday morning, Deagan will be collecting soil samples for a special purpose.

“Excavations this spring have unearthed a number of musket balls and metal objects that could be a cross bow point, a belt loop, and a button,” Dr. Deagan and her team told reporters. “These recent discoveries have led us to conclude that the site is the location of the Timucuan village where Pedro Menendez de Aviles established the first Spanish settlement in Florida.”

The ground where the artifacts were found shows signs of having been burned, which fits written accounts of the fighting that took place between the Spanish and Timucuans in 1566.

With the information presently available, it is highly probable that this is the same location where Menendez gathered the male settlers on September 16, 1565, and called them in to the service of the King of Spain as militia.

In September, the soil collected tomorrow, will be used in a ceremony to dedicate the parade field in front of the St Francis Barracks at the Arsenal in St Augustine.