Lecturer: Dr. Charles Cobb
Lockwood Chair in Historical Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History
2025 UF Research Foundation Professor

Over the last decade, research by a collaboration of archaeologists has made considerable strides toward identifying sites visited by Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto’s army in the American Southeast (A.D. 1539-1543). In addition to delineating the route traveled by Soto, our working group has now amassed a substantial sample of European metal objects recovered from Indigenous villages. This presentation provides new insights on the Soto route and on how the related artifacts shed light on patterns of discard, trade, and the ways in which Indigenous societies reshaped European material culture.