{"id":64318,"date":"2025-10-29T15:58:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T15:58:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/?p=64318"},"modified":"2025-10-30T10:58:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T10:58:03","slug":"arizona-marks-the-spot-locating-the-first-european-settlement-in-the-american-southwest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/2025\/10\/29\/arizona-marks-the-spot-locating-the-first-european-settlement-in-the-american-southwest\/","title":{"rendered":"Arizona marks the spot: Locating the first European settlement in the American Southwest"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Recent Coronado Expedition (1539-1542) research<\/a> has produced abundant and rich evidence pointing to the surprising interpretation that the first European settlement in the American Southwest was established in southern Arizona in 1541.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image 1: Artifacts<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first European settlement was established in the western US in 1541 as part of the 1539-1542 Coronado expedition. The Spanish settlement of Suya or San Hieronimo III has been the focus of archaeological investigations since 2020. As was the case all along the expedition route, Suya exhibits abundant evidence of violence between Native populations and the expedition. At Suya there is evidence for a pitched battle, consistent with documentary accounts. This marks this conflict as the first successful Native American uprising in the continental US. This distinction results from the fact that Spaniards did not return to what would become southern Arizona for 150 years, although they would probe and settle other portions of the American Southwest later in the sixteenth century. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image 2: Excavating<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until the discovery of this large Coronado expedition site in southern Arizona\u2019s Santa Cruz Valley, the route of the Coronado expedition south of Zuni (C\u00edbola) remained completely unknown. Because scholars for decades have thought that the route descended the San Pedro Valley, 60 miles to the east, the discovery of this first site was unexpected and therefore contentious. Compared to existing conceptions of the route it was thought to be too far west and too far north. Yet, numerous up-trail sites have since been found that fit with this reconstruction, including overnight encampments and a two-month-long winter encampment referenced as Chichilticale. The archaeological character of these smaller and shorter-term locales helps differentiate Suya in its uniquely substantial nature. Ongoing excavations have revealed the attempt at a permanent settlement as indicated in documentary sources where this is referred to as a townsite (villa). With rectangular stone-and-adobe structures, substantial storage features, and a diverse household assemblage that includes a range of items not found at Coronado encampments situated in other portions of the American Southwest. Two bronze cannons have been recovered from the center of this large site, where substantial evidence of the battle unfolded among a dense distribution of projectile points, including crossbow bolt heads (which are highly diagnostic of the Coronado expedition).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image 3: Screening<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Extraordinary Claims, Extraordinary Evidence: The Coronado Expedition\u2019s 1541 Suya Settlement<\/a>, by Deni J. Seymour, is out now in SAA journal American Antiquity<\/em>. A short video with commentary by Deni J. Seymour to accompany this blog and the research is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image credits<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image 1 – Artifacts: <\/em>Artifacts representing a wide diversity of household activities provide one line of evidence that this is the\u00a0Spanish settlement referred to as Suya, or the third effort at San Geronimo. This image shows a small subset of items found clustered in different Coronado-expedition loci around the 1-km-long site. The wide range and high density of artifacts differ substantially from what is found on any of the 16 overnight encampments documented so far. Residents brought a quantity of material that included fragile, status-related items, such as the Early Ming Chinese porcelain, which was found at the same depth in a Coronado-expedition feature as a copper point that represents the\u00a0armas de la tierra<\/em>\u00a0used by the rank-and-file members of the expedition.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image 2 – Excavating: <\/em>Careful excavation was undertaken of a rectangular adobe-and-stone walled structure where the first bronze cannon was found, demonstrating an investment in shelter that is not characteristic of overnight encampments or even at the two-month-long winter encampment of Chichilticale. The structure was burned during the final battle at the townsite when Sobaipuri-O’odham overran the settlement killing almost all of its occupants, leaving an array of metal projectile points, including crossbow bolt heads in and around this structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image 3 – Screening:<\/em> Systematic metal detecting of the entire site and excavation of specific areas have provided the evidence required to understand the unique character of this Spanish settlement. This image shows the early stages of digging the northern portion of the structure and searching for the walls during the first season. The bronze cannon was found under the bush in the lower left of the image, which is south, while the screener is to the north.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recent Coronado Expedition (1539-1542) research has produced abundant and rich evidence pointing to the surprising interpretation that the first European settlement in the American Southwest was established in southern Arizona in 1541. Image 1: Artifacts The first European settlement was established in the western US in 1541 as part of the 1539-1542 Coronado expedition. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":823,"featured_media":64319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2263,6],"tags":[5798,5509,352,4039,4092],"coauthors":[11890],"class_list":["post-64318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archaeology","category-humanities","tag-aaq","tag-american-archaeology","tag-archaeology","tag-saa","tag-saa-paper-of-the-month"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/823"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64318"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65130,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64318\/revisions\/65130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64318"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=64318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}