It gives archaeologists a place from which to ask better questions.

It gives historians a physical test for the chronicles.

And it gives the public an opportunity to see early American history differently.

The most important lesson may be simple.

Before Georgia was Georgia, there were Native communities here.

Before American maps divided the Southeast into states and counties, Indigenous political landscapes already existed.

Before Spanish soldiers arrived, people were living in houses whose traces remain in the soil.

And when the Spanish came, they did not enter an empty wilderness.