Worth, John E. (author)

37th Annual Gulf South History and Humanities Conference, Pensacola, Florida, October 17-19, 2019

2019

Since its discovery in 2015, the University of West Florida has conducted archaeological investigations at the site of Santa María de Ochuse, Tristán de Luna y Arellano’s 1559-1561 settlement on Pensacola Bay. After nearly four years of fieldwork and lab work, the site has already revealed a substantial and diverse assemblage of artifacts associated with equipment, supplies, and provisions brought both collectively by the army and its companies and subordinate residential and dining units, and by individuals as personal goods. Moreover, the discovery of features such as trash pits and postholes supplement an increasingly detailed understanding of the horizontal distribution of artifacts to provide important clues regarding the layout of the 31-acre settlement and the activities conducted there, supplementing what the documentary record tells us about this site and the people who inhabited it. This paper provides an update of our current understanding of this important mid-sixteenth-century Spanish settlement.

Exploring the Settlement and Fleet of Tristán de Luna
Luna Settlement
Archaeology
Pensacola Bay settlement
Santa María de Ochuse, Tristán de Luna y Arellano’s 1559-1561
mid-sixteenth-century Spanish settlement