After nearly five centuries, archaeology has provided unusually strong physical evidence linking a Native American village in southern Georgia to Hernando de Soto’s 1540 expedition.

But that sentence leaves out the most important part.

The village was there before de Soto.

Its people had their own history.

And that history is what the archaeology is finally helping recover.

THE LASTING LESSON

The Capachequi discovery offers a lesson that reaches far beyond one Spanish expedition.

American landscapes contain multiple histories.