[muawiyah]

Keeping track with such things, this area is pret' near due South of the Great Serpent Mound at Peebles Ohio.

The "dates" are a tad different, but we can't rule out EARLIER Mayan forays into this area.

It's due East of Arrow Rock Missouri, and West of Arcola WV and Arcola VA.

Not that any of that means anything, but if this place has 1/2 square mile of designated space, that's about 500 arpents.

It could very well have a mix of Mayan AND Spanish settlement patterns, and "artifacts".

Don't believe DeSoto's journal when he said they didn't find gold ~ there's ALWAYS gold associated with Iron Pyrite. That's invariably an iron/nickel meteorite site ~ I'll do some detailed checking tomorrow to see if there's an outline of any early settlement that follows the design required in The Law Of The Indies.

[oldplayer]

Remember though, that culture knowledge and ways can travel farther and faster than a migrating group of people. Knowledge, say of corn raising and all the attendant religious and social aspects that come with it, can be spread by just a very few pioneers, “missionaries” if you will.

Once a people are exposed to an aspect of a culture that is clearly useful, they can adopt it, and adapt to it, very quickly. For instance, nobody needed to spend much time teaching the Indians of the high plains the usefulness of mustangs before their whole cultures were revolutionized. Though they might have shared many identical aspects of the horse culture of the Mongolian steppe, they never needed to meet a Mongolian.

My two cents.

Oldplayer
(Choctaw)

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

The comments at the link are quite contentious!