They know where important ceremonies are held.

Most of that knowledge never becomes archaeology.

The soil preserves the physical results of those routines, but not the thoughts behind them.

This is why the sixteenth-century village deserves to be considered on its own terms.

The Spanish were there for a few days.

The people who lived there had a much longer relationship with the place.

That difference is easy to overlook when the famous name in the story is de Soto.

Yet it is precisely what makes the archaeological evidence so important.