Ep. 369: The Real Indiana Jones

about on top, thank goodness. Yeah, and he's like, I'm out. I'm believing now. This is my kind of podcast. Actually, gonna skip all the juvenile all the things about a guy that wrote in all this stuff about falling into a pit toilet, what have you, tough meat, I don't know. That made waves, though, that pit toilet trying to get punt gun shells manufactured. Like none of that, none of that. The special guests I'm talking about is Denny J Seymour Ph d who, Danny, I'm gonna tell you how I

know about you. I'M gonna tee it up in two ways. All Right, uh, now and then it's something will happen in the news and five, six, ten people will all send me the same article. Okay, Um, the article about the discovery of a battle site, of a fight, a skirmish Um from the mid fif hundreds in southern Arizona between the members of the Coronado Expedition in native tribes

in the area. Uh, a lot of my friends thought that would tickle my fancy and I read the article and I sent it to Krin and I said we need to find this person. I thought you'd say no for some reason. You know what? I thought you'd say no because you're being so secrety in the article. That's how we archaeologists are to protect the sites. But then, you know, then we talked and it was good. Well, I'm still in the middle of research and normally I

don't divulge until I'm done. So normally it would be five years into the project at least before I would tell anyone other than the crew about what we found. When? Well, in this case we did because we needed to raise money for the documentary film and also research. So uh, so we decided to go ahead and announce it sooner, and so with that comes a lot of you know, awareness and people say, Oh, you need to make sure

people are not following you to the site. Well, so far nobody's done that, but you've still kept it under wraps. Oh yeah, people don't know where it is yet, except for the crew, and they're scorning the secrecy. I mean, our guys will find out a challenge. You won't be done recording this and they'll be they're digging around. Well, if you come you have to help dig. So so

here's the way I want to set up. So someone might be sitting there and we've teased this episode on previous podcast episodes, but I'm gonna set up and then you're gonna you can, you can take off and run on. I set up to the best my ability. Um, why I'm interested in the Coronado expedition, and it has to do with and I want and I want you to

link this all together. I learned about the Coronado expedition when I was reading about what I view to be kind of like perhaps the craziest story in early American history, which is the saga of Kabayza Day Vaca. Yep, Cabeza, day Vaca. What year was at the net Navarrez expedition? Yeah, thirties, early. This guy goes up a lot of hundreds of them, Spaniards, going land in Florida and eventually getting a shipwreck get killed off. Bad things happened to him, to the point

where three of these guys walk. Four of them walk over the course of years, spending time in captivity with tribes, spending time with tribes thinking that they're sort of like healers and semi deities. They're eating milkshakes made out of people's ashes and they walk all the way to Mexico. It's like becomes slaves, but at one point Cabas Day VOCA becomes the first European to lay eyes on a Buffalo,

probably around Austin or Dallas Texas. That's why that was my intersection with him, because I was researching that subject. That led me to some passages from the coronado expedition where they make it up into Kansas Um and they're describing not only the hunters they encounter and and out of the Coronado expedition comes the only reference to something that I've ever read in my entire life. They describe people, they describe buffalo hunters who are skinning buffalo and sharping

their flint knives on their teeth. I've never read that anywhere, and he describes the the down wind end of a lake, the bank being formed by just bones of stuff that would drown or whatever in the lake and wind up being there or like various members of that expedition. And that's really as much as I knew about the whole thing.

I didn't know where they were, but I remember being shocked by the fact the Coronado was on the American Great Plains two and forty years prior to Lewis and Clark, which should be the difference between us standing here now and the French and Indian war. That really puts it in perspective, doesn't and what in the hell right were

they doing up there exactly? So your job now is to Um like what were they doing up there and, if you don't mind like a little bit, make the connection between the how the conquissator rumor mill spins like how cobs a vodka could starve his way across America. And somehow this turns into like Oh yeah, but cities of gold old if I had just gone another day's

journey to the blank. You know well. You know the connection between Caves Devaka and the three people with him and the Cornado expedition is that when they got back they had this incredible story to tell and they had heard of people to the north who had cotton and multi story buildings and metal bells and so on, and there were already rumors in European society and also in uh, the Mexico area and so on, about seven cities and this the, you know, the origin place of the Aztecs.

And then in UM UM in European society there was there were stories about places of riches and so on. CABSIVACA never actually said there was gold or didn't expect that there would be uh, but there were rumors in you know how rumors developed, because basically they had found gold, lots of it, in the Inca area and in the Aztec area, in central Mexico and in Peru, and so they kind of expected that there would be riches elsewhere

on the continent. So it really wasn't that unexpected that that kind of imagination would start going wild and that rumors would start. Now a stave on the black more slave at the time was with Kabasi DEVACA and he was the one that was selected. Apparently he was freed

before going uh. He was selected to lead FRA Marcos Deniz in thirty nine north to do a reconnaissance and uh Coronado himself, escus de Coronado, was responsible for outfitting him, and the idea is he was supposed to go ahead and see what was up there and see if the rumors about gold in the seven cities of ce blow and so on, we're true. Can you tell you what that what that seven cities of Sebla? You encountered that?

What does that mean? Well, there were rumors of seven cities and of course seven is important in the Christian religion for a variety of reasons. Um and Um, the Aztecs and others had stories from ancient times about having originated from the North uh, and so everybody had a little piece of, you know, the rumor, the story that the imaginative myth to put together. And so basically it was connected to Sibila or Zuni. Uh. They first went to Howieku, which is among the Zuni Pueblos uh, and

that's where they thought it was. So that was the focus. So they got there and realized there was no gold and then they kept pursuing it elsewhere. They were looking for go all they were looking for other things as well, and they well, they say looking for I mean they were fixing to go take it. Yes, they were just like in central Mexico and in UH, South America. But see, they weren't just looking for gold either. So they were looking for high enough and native population, one so that

they could convert them. That's what the priests wanted to do and that was kind of one of the things that they were charged with. But they wanted enough, high enough native population that they could exploit them for tribute.

That's how they were going to get rich and they were going to set up in Comiendas, and that's one of the reasons that the expedition was considered a failure, because there weren't enough high enough densities of natives for all of the high ranking Spaniards who went along to have an in Comienda have um a large enough area with high enough native population that could support them with

tribute payments and so on. A another reason, apparently, is they thought that this was connected, that are part of the world was connected to Asians, so they hoped to find a route through so they could establish markets there. One of the interesting things that people have been focusing for ages on the gold aspect. So historians more recently have been saying, well, it's not really the gold they were after, but in fact our main site, the first

site we found, is at a major gold source. So the people who got left behind what the first site we found is not only a battle site but it was a it's called the villa of San Hieronimo and it was the third rendition of that where they left some of the Spaniards behind as a supply base, but also a villa in Spanish is town, and so basically it was the formation of a town and interestingly it's at a gold source. It's at one of the best gold sources in the area. Can you remember to talk

a bit about how sadistic the people that ran that? Oh, yeah, I'll remember. If I don't remember, remind me. But here's one more thing about the gold. It turns out that

we have the satellite of other Coronado artifacts around. They're not really sites, they're isolated things so far, but two of them are at other locations where gold was so the people that got left behind me have actually got more gold out of this area than the people who went forward, and they were resentful that they got left behind because they wanted to go and and find all these riches and have all this success and be part of the exploration, the adventure and so on. But they

were working gold deposits. So there was also a lot of stuff in their correspondence they called they called buffalo cattle or Bison. They call them cattle, and they would throw out that there could be they would throw out

that that could be like an industry of exploitation. In fact, Juanharamo in his account mentioned that and uh talked about how you could get back to, uh, new Spain, back and forth via a shorter route to exploit that as a resource, and that is what he thought was the most valuable resource in the area, other than all of these other things that I just mentioned. Yeah, they just encountered staggering numbers of them. Yes, so how many? How many?

Would it makes sense, before we get too far into the actual coronado expedition, just to back up, just to talk about like the Vera Cruz and like Spanish settlements down in Mexico and just really established that before we move north. Uh. Yeah, you mentioned that they had been striking it rich here and there. Oh, sure. So, of course, when Cortez came into the Mexico area, he actually established downsite or via at Vera Cruz and use that as a base. And what he did, and sorry, what year

was that? That was fifteen. I can't remember exactly. Fifteen, nineteen twenties, something like that. Um. So, he established a town site and established a town council and everything. And the reason he did that, did that was that he could separate himself from his sponsor in Cuba, and that way, uh, they voted him as the leader and so on, and he, as a result, was able to uh, correspond directly with the king, and so that's how he was able. I mean it was a political move which was really kind

of interesting exactly. and Uh so it worked out really well for him and it didn't work out well for the natives that were in the area. But bottom line is that was like incredibly rich. And you know, you mentioned before about people being where did this rumor come from and so on. Well, think about it. The first encounters in the central Mexico area, it was so rich.

People made I mean they were like billionaires all of a sudden, overnight, you know, I mean within a few months just from ransack and the gold out of I mean it was just incredible. And also in Peru, the Incan Empire, and they were like taking finished gold, though they weren't taken. I mean I'm sure they probably got into mining, but they were like seizing, like taking gold that had already been used to form form into totems and monetary units. And well, that is true. So, first

of all, gold wasn't the only thing they got. There was a lot of silver and other other items of value. But with respect to the gold, yeah, they had idols. They had religious idol. It shouldn't use the word idols because that's a Catholic way of looking at uh, you know, native uh sacred objects and so on. But basically they took there were rooms that were plastered with gold and they pulled that off. They took Um images uh that

we would call saints today in the Catholic religion. They took them out of the rooms and pyramids and so on and melted those down. But they also had people uh mining, and you know, even Columbus did that, uh, and we see images of Um, you know, the miners working and so on and uh, there's actually one image that was created. That shows UH and uprising by natives pouring liquid gold down to Spaniards through, I mean because

and and that's that's brutal. But the fact is is they were chopping off people's hands and noses down there, uh for not either not producing enough gold or for rising up, or for anything that they thought of as minor. The amount of body like when you get into the corn atole that tradition, the amount of body parts getting removed from people as punishments is just staggering. It is,

it really is. And normally I thought that most of that happened down south, meaning south of the border, the current border, uh, when via Um, you know, when Cortes and Columbus and so on, we're doing their thing, and also in South America. But it's amazing how much of it occurred up here. And the thing that surprised me is that on our site it actually occurred. Now that we know where this Um site is. That's mentioned in

the documents and we know where it is. It's amongst the Atham uh formerly known some of some authom are called Pema. They were all called Pima or various other names in the past. But Um, I work with people there near to son at San Javier, the San Javier district of the tone of octom nation, and they are the direct descendants of the people who met Coronado at

this site. And when I told them about this, it was really difficult for me to tell them, because how do you tell somebody that their ancestors were treated so poorly? But it's also, Um, uh, empowering in a way, uh, because it's a way for them to understand some of the trauma that they now experience and where that comes from. It has much greater depth than even they thought, perhaps because nobody thought that Coronado actually had much of an

encounter with the autum in southern Arizona. It's kind of a backwater area that you don't read about it if you read coronado documents. Basically they just passed through their stories. They always pretty much go up to sea blowers any end and skipped this whole area. Well, it turns out that the area where this site is, this first site I found, is one of the most important coronado sites and, like I said, it's called the Vo San Hieronimo and

the atom. We're able to successfully repel the Spaniards. So it really is the first successful native American rebellion in the continental us, because they didn't come back. The Spaniards didn't come back for a hundred and forty years. That was enough time. Do you thought you really whooped them? For sure. I mean think about it. They came and we ran them off and now they're gone. Well, and it was only twelve years for the Pueblo revolt, which

is considered the most successful one up to this point. So, but the amount of pride, like the Atham are considered later in time, they're discussed as being peaceful and docile, and I've always asked my auth and friends, do you think that's because a colonialism? The answers I don't know. Well, this shows that. My other research that shows that they were the best warriors in the sixteen, eighties and nineties and so on, shows that the extended even deeper in time.

So they take incredible pride in knowing that their ancestors were phenomenal warriors, the best warriors in the region. They were respected by they were feared by the Apache in the sixteen, eighties and nineties. So, uh, the thing I

didn't realize until I was reading a book about Coronado recently. Um, I've never quite put it together that these these people that we call concussed doors were kind of like semi freelance, like swashbucklers or pirates, right, like they had they reported to the king, but they had personal stuff to gain. It's not like, if you imagine the US military, right goes and does some action, it's entirely in service of

the government. Meaning if you go and sack Saddam Hussein's palace, you don't keep half the ship and send half of it right, you don't get okay, you guys will divvy it up. You guys keep half, the government keeps half. Well, the Spanish, Spanish government didn't keep half, they kept a fifth. That's so. But these guys were like highly incentivized. Right,

they were, but understand that. First of all, they were incentivized and that's one reason you have the muster rule at the beginning, and that's one reason why, uh, they put so many horses, livestock, armor, weapons, people into it. Because what is that? What is sorry, what is that word that you use? Muster roll. So basically it's everybody lined up and said what they what they were going to bring along. Okay, and and that got recorded by a scribe and the idea was that they were buying

in in this sense. So, in other words, if they're investing, they're investing. So if they had another uh, you know, Aztec or Incan type discovery, they would have uh partition the find the wealth based on what they contributed. Okay, so it really was an investment. Yeah, like Hey, we're gonna ride up north see what we can sack and locate and find an exploit and develop. And who wants in and what are you willing to kick in on

putting this trip together? Well, that's a somewhat irreverend, reverend, crude way to say it, but that's really what it came down to. But I don't know, they draped it in okay, okay, I don't want to go down the revisionist path, right, okay, I'm interested in context. They draped it in God and country. However, I think it was a much thinner with the concussed the doors, and you can correct me if I'm if you don't agree with this.

I think the CONQUISS the doors there was a much thinner veneer than there were with other godden country actions that happened on the continent years later, like, uh, right now, with our oil and gas pursuits in other countries. I mean, yeah, I think a thinner veneer. Yeah. So, so the thing is keep in mind that we can look at it that way because we have years between us and them, right.

But understand, and this is really important to understand, and I'm not being an apologist by any means, but they were following the rules. Okay, so they were charged by the Viceroy and the King to go and convert people. They wanted to convert all the natives Catholicism, and also the idea was to expand the territory that was under the king's charge. Okay, so the expand the Spanish empire.

So those really were their goals. And in the meantime, since it was privately funded, they wanted to get returned for their investment and then, of course, the crown would get a percentage of that. But they were following the rules the whole time. Okay, so part of the rules. and well, I mean, but then allow them got put on trial later, they did, but only one got actually convicted. Yeah, and the reason he did is because he didn't follow

the rules. So when they went into a native village, they read the requirement, the request or whatever, and it had a specific set of statements, that part of which are and I can read a little bit if you want, but basically, uh, you need to acquiesce to our desires, you have to accept our king, our pope and our way of life and you have to do what we want you to do, including giving tribute, and if you don't, then we're gonna come and take your wives and daughters,

we're gonna kill you, we're gonna Enslave you and it's all your fault. That's basically what it says. And so, first of all, they probably didn't fully understand. But but you forgot the promise, Um, your problems with your enemies will be over. Yeah, yes, exactly, so they so what they promised was that they would be converted, they would

be protected against their enemies and so on. UH, and I'm forgetting something there too, but bottom line is, uh, the trade off wasn't uh favorable at all to the natives. They were doing fine how they were, but the Spaniards wanted to slip themselves in this higher level echelon, just like pretty much did, and in Mexico, for example. Um, and they took Montezuma captive and kind of used him to rule the people for a while and to control it so they could get as much as they want

and basically as a hostage. And they tried that in the Sibyl area and it didn't work. For actually in the in the Albuquerque area, and it didn't work too well. Uh, but they they felt that they were following the rules. And the one guy that got convicted, Um, he didn't follow the rules. Like, for example, uh, he suggested that the Pueblo they had a siege and they suggest he suggested that the people surrender and he promised them, uh,

favorable passage, in other words, he wasn't gonna Kill Them All. Well, he ended up burning something like a hundred of them at the stake and stabbing lancing. He made them drive the I think he made them place their own stakes. I don't remember for sure. Them Alive. Yeah, I mean it's it's pretty nasty, but that's why he was that's why he was the only one that got Um, basically jailed. In essence, it really wasn't jail because he got a

pretty light sentence. Yeah, but how many people are? How many people are on this how many people are on this group of folks that end up like like the group that ends up winding up in Kansas and you know, yeah, so through Texas and Kansas. Like what kind of what kind of like what's this look like coming across the landscape? Well,

that's the really interesting thing about this. The latest numbers historians have come up with is about people, maybe three hundred, fifty or four hundred Europe Spaniards, you know, Europeans, uh, and then their support people, slaves and domestic servants, and then hundred or so, uh, native Mexican Indians. Okay, Native Mexicans. So Uh. So basically two thousand hundred people going across the landscape, which is huge. I mean it's just but

what they think? Um, it looks like in the documents that, if you read them a certain way and very carefully, it actually says that first they sent the advance guard

ahead with Coronado. That included, I think it was eighty or so Spaniards and their support people, including some native Mexicans, and then the second group came two weeks later so that water and pasture wouldn't run out, and so they wouldn't overrun native communities, but they also had a bunch of captains and it looks like they were broken up into smaller groups. And we have now. Two years ago there were no core no coronado sites between Sinaloa, Kul

con and so on and UH Sibila. Now I have four in southern Arizona and you just saw US real quick where those the two sizes that you just mentioned are in like in current day town terms in the US. So one of them is kind of buy no gallus south of Tucson, Arizona, on the Santa Cruz River, which is west of where everybody thinks the route came up. So yeah, so let me go over there first and

then remind me. So everybody, for years, most like of historians and archaeologists, have thought that Coronado came up the Sonora River in Mexico and then up the San Pedro, down the San Pedro River in southern Arizona before turning northeast. Imagine that route being kind of the center of a page or something. Go to the left or to the West. Um, and the first site we found is on the Santa Cruz River to the West. The second site not the second one we found, but the second on the trail

is on an intervening drainage. So we have two sites now to the west of that center line of the page where the San Pedro and Sonora rivers are. And then you go further east southeast, actually still all in the United States, still in Arizona, and there's two sites in the San Bernardino Valley, which is the farthest, farthest Um southeast you can go and still be in Arizona. So my job is to try to figure out how do those fit? And right now we're at the point

of Um intersecting with the San Pedro River. So the question is, did they go north, did they go south or did they go east? And I don't know yet. I'm in the process of figuring that out. That's the next discovery we're going to make. But now we have four sites uh in an area where we had none uh at the beginning of covid basically, how far, how far is? How far apart are those? Those, the first one and the ones way to the east, as the

crow flies, are about a hundred miles apart. But they went like you know, zig zag and stuff, so would be you know many days in between. So Um, you know one thing we forgot to talk about when we were talking about many people. Can you describe the amount of livestock these guys carried with them? Yes, exactly. So there were something like horses, they had cattle, they had pigs,

they had sheep. So thousands ahead of livestock. So honestly they just have to look insane to people, especially when they get to the nomadic hunters and all of a sudden who you know, had never encountered us, to all a sudden look and be like what do we have here? Well, UH, a friend of mine has commented that. You know, it would be like during the civil war. You'd have natives sitting on these UH hillsides watching this, you know, parade go by, but you know it was broken probably into

distinct groups moving across the landscape. But one of the ways that I've been able to find some of these sites is think about it, and people have thought about this before, but you gotta have a reliable source, a huge, reliable source of water and pasture right because if you don't stop and allow your livestock to eat every couple of days of arding to ranchers they're gonna fall over. You just can't go that fart now. They did. They

did mistreat their animals, for sure. Many of them died along the way, but bottom line is the kinds of water sources that I need to look for that they would have need to have found to survive are in limited areas, although there's enough of them that it could take me years to find more sites. I mean it's it's pretty phenomenal that we have four now and we're on the verge of finding the fifth. But do people still, do your peers still think you're barking up the round tree? Um?

Everybody who is a professional archaeologist and most historians agree that I have Coronado. There's no question. We have more crossbow boltheads, which your diagnostic a coronado and go out long before the next European expedition or or big group of people is in the area. We have more of those than any other Coronado site known. Okay, so the crossbow boltheads across the bow eraheads, we have seventy two or something now. So that's the end to ssputable. We

have other coronado artifacts, including the cannon. So we have coronado there's no question what they're questioning without actually seeing the data. Is kind of the problem I have with it is that, uh, they're questioning how I'm putting the route together. And as an archaeologist, I okay, I have four sights, so you connect the dots and if I can connect those with a trail, well that's one trail.

But what they don't understand is I am trying to consider every option available as to how the route might have gone. So I'm backing up with the documentary record and geography and stuff and I'm plotting it out and trying to figure out what is every single option of the way they could go, and then I'm checking those areas on the ground. And so basically right now, like I said, I'm at the San Pedro. Did they go north,

did they go south through did they go east? And I don't know the answer yet, but if they go north, that means that we have two trails because it doesn't connect with the ones way far southeast in the San Bernardino Valley. See, isn't that kind of cool? If they don't go north, then that means they probably went east and then southeast and it connects to this zigzag trail that just goes all over and then goes up, and so that's the verse. That's the point I'm at now.

So the next not the next site. If I find the next site where I think it is, then it won't answer that question. I'm gonna have to find one more to figure out whether they went north, because we know where the water was on the surface and that's likely where they can't. I wanna talk about like how you find this stuff and what you're looking for and sort of like what's there, and I have a million

questions about that. But let's do a quick feel mine, a quick walk through on what happened to the expedition. Like they they get up to the seven cities of old, which are seven cities of that's why it winds up being what like six cities of not gold, and then they get let on this wild goose chase. Yes, well, one tactic was for natives to try to push the

people onto the next place. So when Europeans first to write, even when combasative Acca went through native settlements when they were walking back to new Spain from Florida, they were welcomed at first. There's this continent wide actually it's universal throughout the world hospitality. When somebody new comes, if they're not war alike, if they're not, you know, hostile, you welcome them in, you give them food, you celebrate with them and so on, and then you send them on

your way. And what we know from combasative ACCA is that hundreds of people, sometimes from those villages, would go along with them until they got to the edge of their territor Tory and then they'd stop and then Siva could go on from there, and that actually happened on the Coronado expedition as well. As some of these people would serve as porters, some would just escort them and so on. Do you think those folks were getting paid or I mean, like, why were they going along? In

some cases they were kidnapped by the Spaniards. In some cases they went along because when when you wanted to go a long distance, it helped to go in a large group so you didn't get attacked. Uh. And also, uh, some of them, like the native Mexicans, were in some cases paid. Um. That is kind of an interesting thing, because some of them went along because they the native Mexicans, because their tribute that they owed the Spaniards was reduced

or eliminated. That was kind of a payment to the community.

Some of them were paid exactly Um, some of them were paid cash, some of them uh scholars think that they were paid in the sense of that they got to take slaves or captives amongst the groups that they subdued and then they would take those as captive and that would raise their status within their communities, one because they had taken them in warfare and secondly because, uh then they would uh sacrifice them ceremonially and that was how they gained status and that was also part of

their their culture and so on. So there's a whole range of reasons why native Mexicans went along, but it seems that when you get up here into southern Arizona, uh what like, there were two hundred principles that went along with Marcos Diniza, for for example, in sixty nine, and they wanted to go to help them carry stuff, but also they wanted to go up to see Siebla, to see Zooni, and they pretty much wanted to go

with a group. It would be an exciting thing. I mean that's kind of why one of the reasons all these Spaniards went to. I mean, think about it. It's an adventure, you know. Uh, it would have been an adventure. And maybe in the first two hundred miles. And then can you imagine the drudgery of just knowing that you can't turn back on your own because it's too dangerous? Uh, and you get lost, but you have to keep going forward.

Can you imagine waking up every morning after sleeping on a rock on your back all night and realizing, what did I get myself into? You know? Yeah, and the next thing you know you're in Kansas. Oh, I know, incredible, fighting the whole way. And yes, you and I think and have these thoughts, but I don't know if they had those thoughts because maybe they slept on a rock, you know, every day of their lives, just like we do. Have people dieing left and right to you know, right,

but that was the norm? Right? Well, but not really. I mean for some, yes, no question, for the domestic servants and slaves and, you know, people like that, for sure, but some of these were noblemen. There were some really high status people there, and those are the ones that mostly went with coronado in his advanced guard. But these were, you know people who wore silks most of the time and shoes with no souls and stuff. In fact, I disagree with one of the historians who claims that they

would have worn silks on the whole trip. And it's like I've walked through that. You can see scratches on my arms right now because I was just out earlier this week. I mean, I don't wear silks and my clothes get ruined, you know. So uh, and I have to wear boots with um souls on them so that thorns don't go through them and stuff. So they were uh, they had a very rude awakening, I think. And think about it. They went through in the summer. So they

went through southern Arizona in June. UH, Marcus Niza was may, but June is the hottest month and there's no rain. And I went out to the one of the sites, the latest one I found in June, about the time they would have been there, and it was one of the coolest days and I was just about sick from the humidity in the heat because I was trying to

find more evidence of our side. So you know, it's but everybody says that it would have been cooler than and wetter than and I'm going to research that more because I'm not convinced of that. I don't know. We'll see um, but you gotta do when you're researching it. You gotta put one of them brass helmets on. There you go. It's like instant tinfoil. Is that what you suggesting?

So talking about the wild goose chase, though, because this is an interesting story, like it kind of involves like a guy says, Um, oh, I saw a bracelet made of gold, he had it, and so they take those guys captive and like where is the bracelet, and then one of them tells them some crazy ass story about how they should go to Kansas. That part of the story really brings home to me how greedy they were

at that point, how desperate they were. I mean they hear the story about a gold bracelet that was probably hopper, who knows what it was, and something else I can't remember, and they like pursue this with such dog in this it's like they take the guys and put them in chains and callers and keep them kidnapped for six months in there, you know during the winter, and then end up garreting one guy and I mean it just it's

phenomenal what they do over a stinking little bracelet. But they thought that was the key to where they were explained garretted, you know, like in a godfather too, I think it is, when they killed the guy by just putting a cable around his neck and then you twist it with a stick or something. So this dude, this dude is like, Oh man, the really good stuff is like up and you know, out in the Buffalo Land, and he they get there and he's like, oh no, no,

I think about it. It's a little more over that way right. Well, eventually they just get fed up, like this guy's full of ship and they had some disagreements amongst their gods. But here's the fun thing. Some scholars about three and maybe growing, think that one of their guides was actually trying to take them over to the Mississippian area where there are large canoes, large fish, or at least alligators, and uh, copper artifacts and other things.

And so it makes sense. Now. Just here's another aside. UH, there's a Texas site known coronado side. It's been known for some time, the Jimmy own site. Uh, it looks like we may have one on either side of that now, so we have a partial trail there. That still needs to be proved up, which I will be doing in the next couple of years, but that's very exciting because the route trajectory of those if they turn out, they have artifacts that seem to be Coronado, but we just

need to prove it up for sure. I'm pretty cautious about these types of things. But anyway, if this is the case, it does look like what they did was really went in a secuity, circuitous type route, not only probably to get them lost but also to starve them out there, but also it looks like maybe he was trying to take them to the Mississippian area where the descriptions actually matched. They don't for the Caverra, purposely to get them lost and to starve them. The guides were

doing this too. Just messies like there's an end of the guy they garritted, the guy they killed for misinformation, is like celebrated right by some of the tribes because he got him out. He was it's, you know, the like a contemporary interpretation, correct me if I'm wrong, is that he was like going to lead him out out of the Buffalo planes and lead him out into the state planes of Texas and over they at all they

die out there. Well, and he actually kind of said, according to the Spanish, the Spaniards and the one document, is that he told the people at Calvera that if you don't feed them and their horses, they're already weak and you can kill them. And you know, and apparently admitted that he was going around about way to get

lost and stuff. Who knows what's going on because, bottom line, there was this rivalry between the guides and we'll never know for sure, but I will say that one of our sites, two of our sites, in the San Bernardino Valley that is such a remote area it's like a moonscape. Okay, it's got volcanic rock Malpais, UH, just out in the middle of stink and nowhere, and the camp site that we have it actually has some incredible rock art, Coronado Rock Art. It's very cool, uh, anyway, and and two

Coronado artifacts and some clearings. So we don't know how big a group was there, but it's the first camp, actual camp site. The other one's a town site, right, and and the other ones are artifacts that we haven't identified clearings yet and stuff, but this one has clearings, artifacts and rock art and it is in such a

remote area. One of the guys on the Rock Art is reaching out in front of him and it almost looks like he's saying to people who might try this route, go west to get out of here, this is not a good area. I don't know. That's my interpretation. You can interpret it, interpret rock art a number of ways, but you mean rock you mean you've found rock art that was made by people who were accompanying the expedition. Yes, so, no one knew this was there till now. Well, Um,

the rancher knew it was there. And basically what we have is a volcanic rock that is weathered and has figures pecked into it and one is wearing a hat, one is wearing a helmet like hat and I think it is a domed hat rather than I'm looking at it. Yeah, and Um, if you look real carefully, I actually do a presentation on this, it looks like the guy has a beard. He has a gown on that was typical of the time. They have pointy shoes on, which was

typical of the time. UH, they have a collar like the the UH callers they used to wear at the time, and something else. I forget what up, but anyway, looking at it right now, but it's it's we have coronado artifacts with it, so you know it. It's pretty darn good evidence. Uh. I mean, like one of my volunteers said, I said, well, it looks like it is, and he goes, well, the rock says it is. Uh. So I want to I want to get into how you like ever begin

to find this stuff. But well, that and too, I think what like your work, where the personal passion for this project comes from. But let's wrap up. I want to. I want to first wrap up the expedition. Okay, they go on the wild goose chase, get up into Kansas. A subset of them got up into canvas right. So in Texas they realize that there's no way that we can support this. Many people out here on the plains

were about ready to starve. There's not enough water. So they send most of the people back to Albuquerque to reinhabit Albuquerque again, Albuquerque, Bernal Leo area, for another winter, and a subset goes north to Kansas. Uh, they stay there. I think it's you know, twenty five days or something like that before they come back, after realizing there was nothing up there that they were interested in. Uh. And then they all go back to the Albuquerque area spend

the winter there. Before they leave, Cornado gets kicked in the head by a horse. Yes, it starts acting peculiar. Well, I think that was the second concussion he got. The first one was uh CIBLA, where they threw a slab down and he was in full armor, including a helmet, but it hit him on the head and I think even if you had a helmet on, that's going to cause a pretty big problem. So your second concussion is always the worst. So I think he was in really

bad shape. In fact, when the settlement that I found got attacked, someone was heading south to return to new Spain and then ultimately Spain. I saw that the place had been attacked, went all the way back to the Albuquerque area and didn't tell Coronado right away because of his concussions. So it must have been really bad. So Uh.

So I think he basically Um was. I think he was pretty bad off, but I think that the fact that they had not found anything, the fact that he had a second concussion the fact that the side I found, Santanimo three, was attacked and destroyed. Uh, and Um, what was the other thing I was gonna say? I forget. But anyway, all of those factors together, I think we're

that were the reasons that they ended an expedition. Now, Castinato, one of the chroniclers for the expedition, who wrote some twenty years later, he said that he missed his wife and also, you know, his estates and so on. Well, part of the thing he was governor of Nueva Glossia, and so he had responsibilities down there and the MISHTM war had already started. So like that area was an unrest. He had responsibilities for that and here he was way up there and nothing was turning out like it should.

So he was like miles away and nothing was happening. UH, they weren't getting wealthy, people were starting to cause problems, people were dying. Uh, you know, things just bad energy, and I got like got like mutinous, and they come home penniless. Then they all get the finger point and exactly fighting. And it wasn't. So it wasn't like sacking,

it wasn't like getting Montezooma's gold at all. So, out of those hundred, how many do you think ended up back dealing, like, back where they came from or started from? And then, and then when dawn and lived? Um, not that many Spaniards died. Some died of hunger, some died being on the way up, by being uh killed by natives as they were going north. UH, some died from poisonous plants they were eating because they were so hungry, and then some died in the battles that they had

in the Albuquerque Bernelo area. Do you believe that the do you believe that they were getting shot by poison arrows because they felt that they were Oh, no question. In fact, this gets back to the to the indigenous people that I have studied for forty years, the CEVIYPRIOTEM, the ancestors of the people there in the Tucson area, uh, the Atham. UH, their ancestors use poison arrows. In fact, I studied a battle from when the Jesuit Um uh

sabrio Keino was there. Um, a battle occurred five D Apache and the allies attacked this eighty person Sipriatan village on the San Pedro River, that Middle River. Again Anyway, they ended up prevailing. UH, despite that. It's a long story, it's an incredible story, it's absolutely fabulous, but anyway, Um,

they use poison arrows against their enemies. And so while only fifty four, I think it was, enemies were actually killed on the site that day, they pursued them into the mountains and over three hundred and sixty, I think, died on the way to the mountains because they'd been pierced by those arrows. These guys that talked about getting like a superficial wound on your wrists, say, and then it would be that they talk of, like everything would rod away and you could just see the sinews and

the bones. They'd get into excruciating pain and die, Yep, because they were like because they got some kind of crazy thing. They're dipping these little arrows in and they just sit and ambush them and just try to just prick them with the Arrow. Yeah, it's some actually, interestingly, I identified what plant it is. It's a sap of a Mexican jumping being. I can't remember the scientific name because it was in the process of changing when I studied it. But here's the fun thing. My site, the villa,

or the town side of San Hieronimo three. That was my first Coronado side. I found where the battle occurred. The documentary record from a few years later, from twenty four years later, talks about it again from a survivor and part of what the story is is really fascinating.

It's a fascinating story which I won't go through unless you want me to, but part of the story is that the captain was sleeping with the wives and daughters of the native villagers, the Cevipriatam and that really ticked the locals off, as well as the fact that they were taking more than they said they were going to

take in terms of food stuff and resources, tribute and stuff. Uh. And they were chopping the hands and noses off the residents, probably for terrorism, but also probably for minor, minor offenses, lie, you know, complaining that you took my daughter, you know, or my wife. So Um. But anyway, so they saw lights in the mountains, apparently the night before the attack occurred,

and that was unusual. So they doubled the guard and we have six lookout stations, by the way, around our via uh, and three of them with evidence of having been attacked. So they doubled the guard, but the attack didn't occur until the morning when everybody kind of got lazy. You know that happens. They attacked, they snuck in, probably with clubs first, and clubbed people in their houses and such Um. The captain was killed, and he was the

one responsible for all of this stuff. In fact, he was sleeping with two yeah too, and what those women did is they took a poison arrowhead and pricked him on the side between the folds of his wee peel, which is kind of clothing, and he died from that. And I love telling that story because, you know, the yellow rows of Texas is Um, during the UM, Sam Houston I was able to overrun Santa Anna because he had a Mulatto woman there who was distracting him in

his tent at the time. Okay, so that's the story and that's yeah, and so here we've got the yellow, I mean here we have the red roses of Sulia, who took a arrowhead and killed the captain during the battle. So you have these brave women, women are rarely mentioned in the historic record and UH, here they are central figures in killing one of the main perpetrators of violence in the area. It's just phenomenal. So there's the other

poison they made. Like it's like and read about, I don't re understand it would be that they would take dear liver and have a rattlesnake and, like pastor, a rattlesnake with the deer liver until the lattle snakes struck the deer liver and then they'd pay ace. That is that. Does that seem like legit Um? That isn't a that was one of the Apache tribe's way of doing it. There's a variety of different kinds of poison that one

can use. Yeah, I've studied some of it, not because I have any intense and using it, but I find poison fascinating the same reason other people do, but because it plays such an important role in the historic record and also in warfare in the historic record, because when you start using poison you're trying to kill people. It's not you're just having this ritualized warfare like some small societies do, so that you don't have to kill a number of people. When you start using poison, you're trying

to kill people. You know, you're trying to kill as many as you can. There's a I don't want to take us too far, afield, but there's a I think you've just passed away geists geist. Just I yeah, yeah, maybe it was him. Apologies to his UH survivors if I'm wrong about this, but in looking at the place, to seeing Megafauna extinctions, I feel a key help because people are like, oh, how would they have killed them? You know, we just don't have that many projectile points

associated with mammoths. And he wrote the thing about how do we know that they weren't hunting with poison? And he talked about because poison is not like we know in South America poisons used. We know in Africa they hunt big game with poison. But he was making the case of why have we just ignored the role of poison in hunting when we know that poison is used

in warfare? Well, we also know it is used in food acquisition and stuff like some, I think it's South American, groups, put poison in the water, all the fish come to the surface kind of thing. So I mean poison plays a role in all kinds of food acquisition strategies. So that's not just surprising, although I don't know how to respond to the other than one thought is that one of the reasons those fluted points are fluted is so that the blood flows. And that doesn't make sense with

trying to get the poison to enter the bloods dreams. So, but, but they could have been using other weapons to get the poison in. Right. So uh, one might think, why would anyone give a ship uh what route they took? But I'm starting to put it together. If you find the route, you can find the stuff well and like and and put and solve the mystery. Well, solving the mystery is a huge part of it. That's where part

of my passion comes from. Right. But for me, as an archaeologist, I love finding things, I love piecing the story together using archaeology, the historic record and a variety of other things, geography, ethnography and so on. But I also have gotten to the point in my career many, many years ago, probably a couple of decades ago, where I realized that it's more than just an academic pursuit. For me, I like it when it becomes relevant to

the people that I'm studying. So that's why I work with the Athum uh, the the direct descendants of not only the mission and presidio sites and and Ceviibrieatham sites that I studied, the native sites, but also this coronado story, because now that we know where the route is, we know that they were impacted. Everybody has thought that it was the OPATA, a different group further eastern Sonora, that Coronado, etcetera,

we're talking about. Those were the ones who were impacted. No, it turns out it's the Atham, the AUTHOM had some of the earliest negative encounters with Europeans. So it matters to them, not only, like I said before, so they can understand the history of trauma where some of their cultural changes occurred. You know, they probably had, you know, kids who were mixed race because of this rape that occurred. I mean all of these groups did in fact probably

also a stave them. Probably was sleeping with all kinds of native women. So they're probably African American intermixture. There's European intermixture and stuff. So that can you main being a native woman in one of these towns that got raped by one of these men and then having this white looking kid that you have to deal with and explain, you know, I mean it there's all kinds of repercussions

along those lines. But also, like I said before, now we know that the atom were the bravest, they were the valiant ones, they were the ones that made the whole. I mean that was the final nail in the coffin for the expedition. Once that happened, there's you know, that that intermediate supply base basically was gone, and so the distance between, quote, Spanish civilization and where they were at just doubled in size, and so it made it almost impossible.

But that's the thing. It allows us to put later ethnography with earlier ethnography as well. There are so many reasons as important Um with archaeology too, and this is what a lot of people don't understand. When we find, when I find a site like I can answer a whole range of other questions, like at our town sites and Hieronimo. People have said that it's just a supply base, that there were only men there, so it wasn't a settlement. Well, first of all, you can have settlements just of men.

You can have settlements of men of just age fifteen, you know, uh, and it's still a settlement. But the point is is we there were some women and children along on the expedition. We don't know how many, but I will be able to tell maybe in the archaeological record whether there were women and children at our site. That's just one of the kinds of things that we can examine, one of the questions that we can examine with the archaeological record that are silent in the historic record.

If you find, if you find latrine sites, can you guys do genetic stuff off that? Probably about who would you compare it to? You know, you'd have to find the descendant populations and stuff. Which would could you? Could you tell, uh, male, female, off latrine like off of latrines? I don't know, I've never done that. You know, you got a team up with Dr Beth Shapiro. Okay, you guys be best friends. Is She full of ship? Listen, man, she's the coolest. She's the coolest. She's far from fullish

person on the planet when it comes to genetics and stuff. Cool. You gotta talk to her. Yeah, well, I'm hoping, you know, and you find, you find on the tree site and get Best Shapiro on air, she'll figure out what's going on. We're expecting maybe to find bodies on this site. No, no, atom were killed. No, some viper you were killed. No, none of the natives were killed. None of the local natives, but some of the Spaniards were killed. But the problem is in an archaeologist, if we find a body we

have to stop digging. So we don't want to find him until the very end. So I'm not looking around it. When you find a site, is it? How does it work? Does it work that someone finds something weird and you go and look at me like Bigali, here's a site, or is it that you say there should be a site there. Let me go look both and other things. So, uh, the first site I found, uh, is I found it

very in a very unique way. So I was working on trying to find camp sites along the ONS a trail, because nobody's found any campsites along the on the trail. We know where the route is, that nobody's actually found any campsites. Historians of guests where they are. What's that? What's the on the trail? UH, WAMBATISTA Tonza, in seventy four seventy went out and founded San Francisco, basically brought

a colony out there. Okay, so he left from TUBAC presidio in southern Arizona, south at Tucson, and so, being an archaeologist, I don't want to guess where the site is, I want to find evidence. So I found across a petrockly cross and I thought, Oh, maybe this is Barcos de Niza, maybe this is father Kino or maybe this is Wamba Desta, the Anza. So I finally figured out it's probably on because there's a campsite, campsite uh inferred

to be near there. And then I found another Petrock clyff cross further up where we know another camp site. They're carving crosses into rocks. Yeah, exactly, and they're probably you know, they're at water sources there, at passes and stuff like that, and we know they're along trails. I actually have a youtube video that talks about the Anta trail and shows the crosses and so on. So but anyway, for a while I was thinking maybe it's Marcos de Niza and maybe this is the same route and so on.

So I started looking into things and then I couldn't find any horse shoes related to Uh Ansa, and we think that maybe horse shoes weren't used later in time because they had the type of horses that had rougher Hoofs, like Spanish barbs, and they didn't need them. Plus, horse shoes were very expensive. But we know that they were used in the Coronado period, during the expedition, and I have a bunch of them. I do, I mean I found that's more. These other sites, many of them are

defined by in part by horse shoes. Are Mule shoes. Oh, so when you guys talk about the nails, is the horseshoe nails? Yes, but I also have a video. Yeah, so I have a video on that and that's one of the uses of them. But there's probably other uses for the nails as well. But they're gable headed or carrot headed nails. I've started call them gable headed nails because they're, you know, like gabled roof and that makes

a lot more sense. The carrot is an editing character kind of because of that, the upside down V shape Um. But Anyway, uh, where were we? Horseshoes? Oh, so I was looking. I had worked at the Spanish presidio Santa Crist terranant prasidio before, excavated there for years and never found any horse shoes. So I wasn't hopeful, but I looked on the Internet for, you know, what kind of horse shoes might have they had that I'm missing, or horseshoe nails, and then I found an image of these

online and nobody knew where they were at. Uh, but we knew have found them, and so I guessed where he might have found them because I had been working on a site for years. I've worked the whole Area A lot. But I found a Horse Jangle because Cojo, uh Jingle Bobs, some people call him, from the bridle bit on my subiper site and I thought this looks just like the one on the Jimmy Ollen site. They're

in Texas, a known Coronado site. So I wondered, like twenty years ago, could this be Coronado, but I had no way of proving it right. Well, so when I guessed where these might have come from, I went back to that site after doing a train analysis and within a couple of hours, within less than two hours, had found Coronado. So the metal detector. Yeah, yeah, Yep, when you say you had found Coronado, that doesn't mean you

found his body. No, no, he's buried. He died ten something. Yeah, what I mean is um that evidence of Coronado's trail and it turns out a town site and now we have, like I said, four down here and there's a bunch of Albuquerque and so on, and one for sure in Texas Um. So that's what I mean as an archaeologist when I found Coronado. Yeah, real quick before you go farther on, because I'm just still, like you were saying earlier, when Steve Asked you, like Oh, if you find the path,

then then you unravel the mystery. But what is the like in real short form? What is the mystery still yet with this whole expedition? Well, part of the thing is that nobody's been able to find it. So that makes it the path. Like how could thousands of people and thousands ahead of livestock? I have this role in battle from Mexico to Kansas. So the path is the mystery,

the path and the campsites. And even two fifty years or whatever it is ago, Father Keino and his military escort, in their documents they left, questioned where coronado went and said, hey, he probably went here. You know, turns out corn, turns out Father Keno from six nineties actually stayed at one of the places where one of our sites are and he didn't know it, which is really kind of cool actually. So we have these layers of history and stuff, but

it's been lost. It was lost afterwards partly because they didn't know where they were. Right. They didn't know where they were on the train. They went back and forth several times so they could find their way, but they had they had no idea where they were. There's no surviving map of this part. So even if they did a map, even if even if they prepared a map,

I don't think it would help much. When they were crossing the UH Yano esticado state plans, they were leaving big mountains of buffalo chips so they could try to find their way back the way they came. Yeah, and then also, yeah, they true. And then also to find their way, they'd shoot arrows. They wait till the morning, till the sun rose, they'd shoot a couple of arrows and then keep shooting them over one another so they

could stay on the trail. And My uh, what I imagine is when they got led astray by those guides, they shot them a little bit to the right each time. Right they knew exactly what they were doing. So you guys found a this kind of most surprising thing. You've turned up, Um, one the cross like armaments, crossbowl Arrow you know, projectile points from crossbows that they used and they fought. But you found a cannon. Cannon, Yep. So before I mentioned the cannon, what we have with regard

to the crossbow boltheads? We have a I'll show you one, but also, Um, what I have here is, Um, a map that we plotted them out. I could see in the field that Um that we had clustering, but I plotted it out more recently and Um, basically what you can see. I'M NOT gonna be able to find it now, of course. Um, what you can see is that the crossbow boltheads cluster and in just a tour, actually four different areas and in the first area with most of them,

including broken ones, a lot of tips and so on. Uh, there are also subpriatam stone arrowheads. So that's where there was little shootouts. Yeah, they came up the wash and that right in the heart of the town site. So Um, so you can see that. Um, and uh, that is one of the strong like when I tell people how many crossbow boltheads. We have more than any other coronado site. That's convincing. And then how they cluster. We can see

where they went and such. But Um, near where that occurred we did find the cannon, and the Cannon Uh is. I'm still looking for this image. Sorry. Um, the cannon was found, uh, metal detecting, but it was sitting on the obviously, I'd like to rent you for a couple of weeks, man, just to just to go metal detecting. We'll see. I got some real honey hooles. I'd like

to go. Have you shown me how to work? Yeah, but see, as a professional archaeologist, what I have to say, and this is really, I think, important, metal detecting is an important tool and I didn't use it much until recently, but this is one of the reasons coronado hadn't been found, because archaeologists were hesitant to use metal detectors because we did not want to to lead the public to the idea that you can just go out and loot, meaning take things out of context. And well, that's what I'm

fixing to do with you. Yeah, there you go. So that's what you think. Huh? So? So, anyway, here's my point, and I want to make a point about this. I'm not trying to be arrogant, because I know that people. One of the reason my crew volunteers, and I have like thirty or forty people volunteering with me, and one of the reasons they do it is there totally passionate about finding this stuff and they get to do it in a way that's professionally or, you know, responsible. Yeah,

they're they're like making history. They're making history and they knew from the beginning and everybody sworn to secrecy and certain rules. We haven't stuff that they can't keep anything. But but here's the deal, the reason this is important

and I can't stress is enough. Remember, I was talking about the Sonora River and the Sampedro, where everybody thought they went up there, and I have two sites to the West and there's two sites to the east, and now I'm at the Sampedro trying to decide whether they turned north, south or went straight east. Well, I think they might have went north because somebody found a medieval

horseshoe fragment there fifty years ago. The woman who allowed this person to look was given this and a few other artifacts, and I saw it in her display case. She didn't do the meddle detecting. She she doesn't know exactly where found, but she thinks it was found to the north. Now that's the problem. First of all, if I hadn't run into her. I ran into her through a friend WHO's on the project, who I've known for some time, and I saw this. Where did you get this?

So she doesn't really know where it came from. So that's part of the problem. So I'M gonna be on this wild goose chase. But if she knew exactly where it came from, then I could walk right there and know that that's where the site is. What if that's the only artifact that was thrown from a mule or horse or the only artifact left behind by the expedition in that location? Then it's a race and so many people pick these things up they don't record where they're from.

And that's the one key. And I was working on another site. The WHO, the Apache leader? Who? Where he killed? Uh Lieutenant cushing, uh Um in one, hero of Tucson and so on. Nobody could find this place. I found it fairly quick. Uh train analysis again and understanding Apache ambush behavior and the thing that we realized is that it had been metal detected and collected before. And what happened? Is it with somebody from Wisconsin in the Tucson Sierra

Vista area. He collected all this stuff. He showed a local gun shop and they verified it. And that's how I know it happened, because it's one of the people on my crew and the guy has disappeared. He never came back. He was going to come back and the things probably ended up in the landfill from Wisconsin. Yeah, his family probably. I've rel nonetheless. Well, you know, I've called up there and tried to figure out maybe where

they could be. But the problem is when somebody dies, their collections just get tossed half the time because nobody recognized. They think it's a bunch of trash. And so, with regard to Coronado, it's super important that they leave so little. These are overnight encampments for the most part, and you find one thing in some cases. But if you find one thing, artifacts can move, they can get there by other reasons. A native could have picked it up or whatever.

But the fact is if you find an alignment of them, then you know you've got the trail. When somebody takes one of those out, it's harder to find the next one, or you could erase whole segments of the trail. So I totally understand and I'm on board with what you're saying. It took me a while to get there, but and and and again I've been on. I got to spend time with archaeologists. We found ice age projectile points that they would just shove back into the ground. It was

painful for me. I would fantasize about going back there and getting them all. Never did you like working with me. I get it, understand and when I pointed out, when I pointed out, I'm just pointed out because it's what like a a people people. People walk around looking at the ground, thinking you're gonna find some cool ship land there right. It's like they often view it as why is that archaeologist finding it? Like why is that? Okay, but it's bad for me to find it, and that's

it's like they're like what are they? They're they're better than me. You know what is it? I've heard that story too and I understand it. I certainly didn't. What do you laugh about? You think you're better than me, because you know I'm saying it's definitely it's something a little kid who is something taken away from them. Go volunteer with Danny. I'm not talking about me, I'm talking about like, no, I'm putting myself in like articulating the

thing that's been okay, do this test. Do this test. Go on Um, go on Instagram, and and and just go on instagram. Take take a projectile point. Okay, and go on instagram and put in the palm of your hand and say I found this uh Indian Arrowhead. Too Bad I couldn't keep it, and then look in the comments section a couple of days later. Oh Yeah, I've I've read this. So like this is a widely held viewpoint. Yeah, I know the like what are the odds someone's gonna

find it? It's been here this long, no one's found it yet, whatever. And this ship winds up in coffee cans on people's Windows, on the wall right there. If Our podcasts people send us that ship, I gotta I guess people try to give me all the time. But here's the thing. The fact is is that this site where the first big the first site I found, the biggest one. The town site where the battle occurred. People had metal detected there before that. Yeah, they haven't had

no idea what they're looking at. Well, they had worst metal detectors. They didn't know what they were looking at and they're all out of context. And the fact is is what I would say to people who have that view is I understand it. It's the thrill, it's the thrill of the chase, it's the adventure, it's finding something cool and old. But Americans are kind of unique in that way. Is that we got to keep things for some reason. We want to put them on our mantle.

Other people when people come over and go see that, yeah, exactly, ship and we like to collect. Well, and also people have collected it and said I collected this for you so that nobody else would take it, and I said you just took it, you know. But tell you something, this is gonna trip you up. This is the Tony Baker story, the late Tony Baker. They were talking bad about the dead. No, they found Tony Baker. No, I don't know where it went. I remember telling me the story.

They found they were at a Pueblo. Archaeologists working a Pueblo site had found where the Pueblo in people had a stash of fulsome points. They found it and thought that's cool. Yeah, and they're they're separated by ten thousand years. We find that in archaeological sites. Is often things were picked up to put in medicine bags or picked up as Curios or also picked up at to reuse. So that's quite common. They're like these people are from a long, long time ago. Let's strong in jail. I don't know

what I'm saying. The viewpoint be like they, in their time, like a thousand years ago whatever, recognized that like wow, yeah, no, it's a weird thing from a long time ago. And See, I think there's people who just don't care about history in the past, but there's huge number of people, I'd say maybe half the population or more, that find a fascination with the past, with history, with people have gone before. It's a connection. Artifacts provide that tangible connection to the

past and that's why people are enthralled by it. But what I will say is, getting back to our site and our project, I haven't asked my biggest question yet, and it has to do with the cannon. Okay, so the reason that it's important is what if somebody had

come in and collected all these crossbow bolt heads. If they had, you know, done it and found this or the cannon the bolt heads, we wouldn't have been able to see the pattern, right, we wouldn't have known that this is a most important historic site, potentially in the region, in the southern Arizona at least Um. If they had found the cannon, you know where I'd be right now? In some Saudi's basement in his private collection. That's right

on some of my kids. Yeah, exactly, see. So the way I look at this is this is all of our histories, right is this not just my find, and that's why I'm sharing it in the film and the

documentary film. But I also see that as an archaeologist, I could go out and find this stuff and not tell anybody, right, I mean, I could do it just like the public does, but I don't because I recognize that this is our collective history and most other countries, how a sensibility about that that we would help if we started thinking about it this way, because once we take something out of the context, is everything, once we take it out of its context in the field, we

lose the story, the story about Coronado and this uh town site of San Joranimo, the interaction with the natives and all of this is just so phenomenal. It's the story itself that we can tell from the artifacts and where we found them on the ground and the relationship to each other and the features, the structures and so on that we're finding. If people just collected that, we would lose that. So we have this whole the whole story that we're able to develop because people didn't get

in there and destroy the evidence. And that's why I keep the place secret, because I can only work so much. See I can only work so fast. I almost killed myself last season trying to get certain things done before the end of the before it got too hot and before the rains and stuff. But if people find out where it is, they're going to come into metal detect

and then it's going to mess up our distributions. So at least until we're done metal detective, I've been going over some areas five times to get everything out so that people don't feel the need to go right Um, we've got to figure out how to protect it uh, but if you want to see it, you'll have to

wait till it's in a museum. Yeah, we'll probably end up doing site tours and stuff, but they're gonna it's gonna be consultation with various landowners and agencies and, you know, the whole whole range, because it's even when I extract what I extract, I'm only going to do a subset of the evidence. there. The the ethic is to save a lot of it for the future, and so I'll

do that. But also the landowners don't want to be overrun. Uh, it's probably going to be turned into, hopefully to a monument or landmark so that people can go just like they do to a national park. Um, it's such a big thing. It's such a big fine so so important to our history, into the history of underrepresented populations, native populations, the Ottom and also the Hispanics in the area. It's going to be a matter of pride for them and

they're gonna want to have their interpretations. In fact, the autumn that we've brought out so far are really proud to be part of it so that they can start telling their story for a change. So I mean it has social implications. The fact that we've been able to find this stuff intact, that it hasn't been collected before. I'll stop harping. That's enough. But you got it. You got it covered. Could I want to ask my biggest questions?

You can describe the Canon within this, within this thing, but you found the oldest gun to ever turn up in the US. Okay, Yep, it's been sitting there for I can't really do the math, four years when we found it. It's been sitting there for four years. And you find it kind of like built into an adobe wall. No, no, sitting, uh, inside a structure. So the structure walls were made of Adobe and rock and had collapsed on it to protect it. But I haven't done my question yet. Okay, what the

Hell did someone think that wall was? WHO's been looking at it? First, since, like, are there that many walls out there? They're like, Oh, I didn't know that the Coronado expedition built that wall in my backyard. What was it regarded like? How is it perceived by the people who are occupying that area now? Okay, so first of all it's ranch land, but secondly there's no walls visible on the surface. So what happened is it was partially burned and collapsed at the end and it's melted into

the surface and my heart was somehow picturing it. They're like, Oh, I don't know what that old wall was, people passing it by for French today. Yeah, archeologists surface. Yeah, and and so my question. Yeah, so my entire careers, career has been spent on identifying Apache, so viper, all these groups that are difficult to define, hard to see the archaeological evidence. And this is just as difficult, just as

hard because it's a type of structure. The structure I'm digging now is unlike the prehistoric stuff and unlike the later historic stuff, and that's what's so cool about it. So I've been digging it very carefully to try not to ruin it, because there's only one structure in the entire world that has coronado's cannon in it, m as far as we know. So, uh, so, I I have this responsibility which almost paralyzed me. You know, it's like in decision. What do I do? Because I have I

have a responsibility as a professional. Uh Two, be as careful as I can and to preserve as much of it as possible. And so tell how you guys found thing. The cannon. Yeah, like, what was it doing and how did you find okay, it was laying there kind of smoking a cigarette. No, Um, only two of us were out in the field that day. So, uh, it was

in September of we were. I had just laid out that we lay out these tape lines so that we can systematically metal detect right and uh, Chris went ahead and got started and I finished laying out the lines and then I got started. In like five yards or meters into the first line I got a hit. It wasn't very strong, so I started digging it. As. Are you set for a specific type of metal? No, U. The detectors that I use are all medals. I got

them set for all medals. UH, intentionally so, because most people looking for treasures and stuff are looking for gold or looking for, you know, old coins and stuff. We're just as interested in the E and artifacts, the Ferris artifacts is, we are other things like the nails are right. So I have the hardest time explaining to my kids that they're not going to find stone arrowheads with their metal. No, you won't, but I explain it. It's twenty times, but

it just doesn't click. They think it's an old thing, detector, walk up on the street, find old people, right. No, Um, so all metals. In fact, I've had a hard time convincing my crew at times. Look, we can't discriminate. You've got to find everything. So you're digging through old twenty two shell casings and pull tabs off beer cans and, Um, I want to tell all the hunters out there please, please, we have so many. In fact, people yell out shotgun

because we find so many shotgun shells. Uh. It's just absolutely incredible. A little bb size shot. We can we get that too? You're finding that. Oh yeah, our detectors are good and our crews are good, so we find really tiny stuff. You know, twenty two is all kinds of stuff. A lead shot. She should pair up with Chris Parish. It's like a lead clean up at the same time as like an archaeological well, what we do is we collect that kind of stuff and then we

dump it. But I always checked my cruise pockets because a couple of times, no, no, no, no, because a couple of times they don't take anything, but a couple of times something that was a value. We thought what they thought was a piece of wire and it wasn't okay. So, like what we have is we have fish hooks, like size number six fish hooks. We have several of those and one with a weight. We have um little spring things that went inside uh Um matchlocks and we lock guns.

We have expedition had fish hooks. So they were fishing at our site because it's near water. Isn't that cool? We have several. I wouldn't have believed it if we just found one. But get a picture of that old ask Fishhook. Um, I'll see, we'll get it from you. Yeah, yeah, and then, and then, okay, but I interrupted. You tell me how you found the cannon. So there you are. Uh Yeah, so I I got a hit and I started digging down and it was about a foot under

the ground and I thought this is really weird. What is this? And so I called Chris, because any time we find something cool we call the other person over. So he comes over and what is that? And I said, I don't know, maybe it's a bell, because it had that Cassoo Bell on top, you know, and uh, we kept digging. Finally he takes the metal detection he goes it's long. I wonder if it's an irrigation pipe. I said, it's not an irrigation pipe. What is it? You know

there's no irrigation out here. Um. Anyway, so he kept digging it and realized started realizing what it was. And so the thing is, I sent you something. It shows the roots wrapped around the gun. So I called a couple other crew members who were the main crew members at the time. I said you gotta get out here. We found this. I sent him a picture of it and uh, I said you've got to bring a sauce

all or something, because we got these roots wrapped around it. So, uh, one of the people where he was able to come out and he brought a sauceall and we were we knew by that point that it was pretty cool and that it was probably a canon or something. We didn't we've never seen one like that. Suite, how much of it were you looking at that moment, at that point in time? Like two inches of this thing? Are you

already looking at of it? Um, when I called people, was the one you were realizing that you had something pretty cool. Well, I realized it was pretty darn awesome when I first dug down and only saw let's say six inches of it because enough of the CASCA bell was exposed and I could tell it was a bronze like material. I didn't know it was bronze, but you know, something like that and uh, something unusual and Um, and

so I kept exposing it. But while I was digging it, I was also trying to figure out whether it was in some kind of pit or something, because the context, once again, is critical. So it turns out it wasn't. It was sitting on the floor of a destroyed structure from the battle. But UH, Chris took the metal detector and figured out it was real long. So we dug the whole thing and cleaned it out and stuff, and then the guy came out with a saws all and we were so protective. I was really glad I found

it because I know how to dig the things. So I didn't put any dings or anything on it. I mean that's that's kind of a source of pride, but also here's this rare artifact and I didn't want to damage it anyway. So when we were using the SAWS alls, we were putting our hands to protect the can and I can't believe we did that. Finally, I said no, don't do that. Put your glove down. I mean that's how crazy it was. It was starting to get hot. Uh, it was only September, but September can be it was

already September, but September can still be hot. By the time we finished up, we were just dripped and sweat and we were out of water and there were three of us out there and we just I mean at that point it was just a man we were just glad to get it out of there. But the reason we had to get it out that day is I've

always had I think all archaeologists do this. Once you find something cool, you can't just bury it and come back the next day and finish it, because you feel like all these eyes are on you, you know, like radio hosts following you out to the site. So you got to get it out. Something that important you got to get out of the ground. So we stayed there until like two o'clock, I think it wasn't it, or just about dying it was hot. Describe the cannon like.

How was it made? Where was it made? What would he use it for? Okay, so we've called it a wall gun, maybe a hack better, something as a hook, a gun with a hook on the bottom that they would put on a wall or parapet or something, or on a Tripod. Usually a shot by two men, one to light the match and the other one to hold it. Um. Yeah, God is a preliberal term and my thing for this thing.

It is. But that's why that article that I gave you, I've written it with a weapons expert and all of his buddies have read it who are familiar with historic cannons and guns and so on. So guns a generic term. It is a cannon. But yeah, just a listener understands a little bit more about what you're describing it. It's basically like a in simple terms, it's like at you said seven gauge in the article. Yeah, yeah, I think

it was like a millimeter. was roughly when it translated to yeah, the bore of it and surprisingly wasn't that heavy. I thought it was gonna be a lot heavier, but I think it cands around forty pounds and Um, it's uh, it's actually heavier than that. When people, everybody WHO's picked it up, point this is really kind of heavy. Um It uh. In two sites in the Albuquerque Bernolio area they found some of the shot that probably went with it. But at our site there's no walls too to bombard

with the larger shots. So we think that they were shooting, uh, Buckshot or swan shot, you know, smaller lead balls. It wasn't loaded. Wasn't when you found it. It wasn't. Yeah, you should have brought you should have brought that thing here. Was For us to take a game. And no stock either. No stock either. That was interesting. Like that Hook that you were just talking about, like they think that they used to like use that as a way to control

the weapon but also to manage the recoil a little bit. Exactly. Placed on the far side of a wall or the forest, the hook would be on the forest of a wall or a branch. So when the gun would recoil that, yeah, exactly, and that's probably part of what the two people in the tripod are about. Two because it would have knocked somebody over. Otherwise been pretty powerful, depending on the charge that was put in there. But yes, so, um, it's crude. It doesn't seem to have makers marks. The PAN is

not dished out. UH, there's no decoration we have. The PAN is not dished no, it's flat. So when they put priming powder around it is like would lay that priming powder around a flat little surface, Yep, and take a match and touch it to it and boom. Do you think it hadn't occurred to him to pan it out, like we're people panting out the archibuses and stuff by then? Yeah, it's just that's one reason we think it was made in Mexico, because we know that Cortez made a bunch.

In fact, I've cided, I think, in that article Um, the quotations about how he made several. What we've discerned, too, is that this is actually a copper ally rather than really bronze. So it's a copper alloy, but they would have considered it bronze. It's close enough, you know. So for some reason I thought when I read your paper, I thought it was I thought you mentioned it being dished out, but it's just a flat little platform. Yeah, I'll show you a picture later, but it's just at

and so there's a variety of reasons. Plus it would have been uh Um. Oh, here's the other thing. The the way you can see how it was cast. You can see the sprew marks on their still and as Um some of the experts have pointed out, no self respecting foundry in Spain would have left those on there. You know, there's a matter of pride in making Nice firearms.

So so there's a variety of reasons and several of the experts who we sent that paper to agreed that it probably was made in Mexico, which is kind of cool. Who knows whether they made it specifically for this uh expedition or whether it was one of the ones that Cortez had. It certainly would have been. Would not have been a Columbus one, because his were iron as far as we know. Man. Yeah, the oldest, you know, even though, yeah,

I said like gun, the oldest firearm whatever. We were trying to mix up the words, because you can only use cannon or law that are hacked but so many times. But like the oldest gone found in the continental us and it's certainly the oldest bronze one. Uh, and it's the only one from the CORNADO expedition. I mean it's pretty phenomenal, it's pretty cool. Uh. We called it our trophy for a while so we didn't have to tell

people what it was. Uh. You know, we're keeping it secret for a while so it really is our trophy artifact. There's UH, it's it's the coolest thing in the world. Yeah, it's kind of better than a helmet and a breastplate too, we decided. So have you found some of those? No, but we have found pieces of armor off those. And then there's two people in the area who found helmets, one of which has disappeared once again, is collected and

is probably thrown away now, and the other one. I went up to talk to the guy and he was so secretive he wouldn't show it to me. So I'M gonna hopefully get a neighbor to go with me and and we'll talk him into how does he those are probably traded right among the tribes. Well, here's the interesting thing.

Given that there was a battle there and many people were killed and then everybody else dispersed, I sus bact some were stashed in structures that the natives took somewhere, possibly buried, because that's how you did things when you wanted to store things at that time. You pretty much buried them if they are a value and they might have gotten dug up later. Um. In other cases, the

natives killed some Spaniards and probably took them in. So some of them might have been uh ritually or ceremonially cashed. Some might have been destroyed uh in in retaliation, Um, some might have been traded to other people. There are pieces of armor reported all around, some which occur in the Apache area and Hacoma area, other natives of the time. So I suspect that they were in fact traded all over the place Um, and ended up, you know, across the landscape. That's why we have a halo of stuff

around our site. Are you familiar with are you familiar with, Um, that Charlton has the movie called the mountain men? I should be in this. They go uh, it sort of takes place as the beaver getting diminished. Charlton Heston and his mountain man trapping partner go to a chief named iron belly who is supposed to be passing along to them a hot tip about where there's still a lot of beaver left. And he is wearing Spanish armor, and

that's kind of like a plot point. The iron belly has like old Spanish armor, and so it sort of lodes this way that stuff from that era was traded around and it's being like up in Wyoming but I

have a very hot tip for you, though. When you talk about the stat that there could be a stash of corneto helmets or whatever, do you know there's a rumor that after the battle of little big Horn, a bunch of the stuff, a bunch of the custer expedition stuff, was stashed in the cave cool and somebody found it a hundred years ago. Now, supposedly there's like a cash and some people have seen it or not, of like stuff that was like pulled off of the custer's command

and buried in a cave nearby. Well, you know, I will say that, Um, if, if I hear all kinds of stories like this. In fact, I actually have some people call me up and then I questioned them a little bit and then they get a rate that I won't do the research for them or go out and find it for them. Uh. The latest one is some uh supposed gold bars found up in the superstition mountains that are actually quite sizeable and you can tell that they're painted gold and the earth around it is disturbed.

I showed my brother, who's also an archaeologist, and I go look at this and he laughed. They're clearly not gold bars. They're not. They don't even look like gold bars from that period. And and you can tell as an archaeologist that the ground looks like a garden. You know, it's all disturbed. And he's telling me all these other things and trying to get me to be his P I for some research project. And it's like, Oh, you don't even need to do any work. And he doesn't understand.

I don't just pass my authority around like that. It's if I'm going to be your P I, I'm going to do the work right. It's my reputation on the line. So but anyway, I get requests all the time of people lost, Dutchman mine gold, the iron door that's, you know, closing off of mine, the old Jesuit Gold, uh, paintings, religious paintings that have keys to where the gold is, and all this. I mean, I get it all the time and uh, you know, you can have a share of it or or you can't have a share of it,

but I'll give you this. You know what I mean. It's just like I'm surprised Dan Brown hasn't reached out to you to do a and do a book. But do you do you actually then ever work. As you're saying, it's like a P I for somebody. Have you've been hired out to do a project that you have accepted

along those lines? No, not along those lines, because I asked a lot of questions for I mean, I had a professor one time who said I send all the crack pots to you because I don't want to deal with them, and I said you really is that one of these is going to come through one of these days. But what I do is I talk to people and usually I see through the story or I asked so many questions that they just stop. UH, stop asking and stop communicating with me, because if I'm got to waste

my time, I want to make sure it's real. Um, I don't do that kind of work anymore for anybody else. The only reason I would do it for the most part is, uh, if it was of a research interest interest to me. I have a couple of projects going on now. One is actually paid and I retired years ago. I just sold my company and do research full time.

I started that in my mid forties. Um. So right now I'm working on the communee real in the El Paso area at Los Crusis a Passo area and interviewing natives about the trail that became a Spanish trail and cultural patterns and landscape and stuff, and then this coronado stuff. Anything I do other than Coronado distracts me from Coronado and that's all I want to do right now, and you can tell that I'm really into what I do and so anything that takes me away from that just

as kind of you know, go away. I don't want to deal with it. But if somebody calls me up and they have a legitimate fine, or if they think they do, I treat them with respect because people are interested and there's a lot of people out there who have genuine interest or genuine find and I don't want to diminish those uh, in fact we want to incorporate them into the record if, if they are real. But

there's so many people. Uh, you know, one of the questions that I got asked earlier was how did these people believe this uh wild stories about gold and stuff? Well, one is because in Mexico and Central America, South America, excuse me, they had found gold. But the other thing is even today you look around and people believe the

most outrageous things. And you know, one person looks at the evidence and says that's B S and another one looks at it and goes wow, they have images of, you know, mountains of gold or whatever it is, and so it's just imagine, it's just a matter of people have always been attracted two legends. People have always been attracted to the goal just beyond. You know, that's why so many people play the lottery and stuff and go to the dog track or the horse track. I mean

it's this chance of winning big. What is not to be exciting about that? I mean that's just you know, that's why people eat lucky charms for breakfast. Here you go. Do you feel that? If you imagine the the cannon location as a center of a circle, what is the radius that you're interested in? Like after this battle, I mean they probably whatever, like dismembered, somebodies buried, Um, like

stuff happened, right. I mean there was a lot of stuff. Well, the is a kilometer long as we understand it now. So that's UH, ten football fields, okay, and and six of those wide, including the lookout stations. It's probably going to be a kilometer and a half long by the time we finished, we just had to stop because of the heat. But uh, we have evidence of occupation and battle throughout that area. In fact, one area we have

what they called weapons of the land. We have some of those, in other words what the people who weren't shooting arquebuses and shooting crossbows were using, in other words what they gathered, what the natives made for them or they made themselves. So we have these different areas. We can see the Spaniards being chased across the landscape, we can see them battle, moving and so on. Um, so I forget what your question was. I'm sorry. How big

of an area? I was asked like how big of an area, because they're like stuff's gotta be there, there is stuff there, right. But well, like I said, we're not looking for bodies right now. Yeah, so that's a whole different approach, right. You can't metal detect form. Well, if they have knives in them and so on, you could, but no remembers. You saying if you find a body, it's kind of yeah, I'll go down there and take a look. Where's this place? Where's this place again? It's

in South America, Patagonia, down there. Um, but how many years will you spend there? You think, UM, probably five. And the reason I say five, I've been saying that since the beginning, is because it's going to take a lot. We're only about half done metal detecting. Plus, we in the part that we know about and then we got to expand it to the north and south. I think

it does go further. Uh. Plus, I want to keep digging this and a few other structures, but we want to leave some in place and I think they're about five years. That's enough damage, because what we do is archaeologists damages the site. Whether we like to think that way or not, we know it does. I'm taking things out of context. What I'm doing is I'm putting markers down and, uh, using a global positioning system unit to mark where they're at so we can know exactly where

they came from. And then the whole thing is gritted and stuff. Now, not the whole thing, but where we're digging. So, Um, what my goal is is to drive just enough information that I can convince all reasonable people, and maybe even some of the serious skeptics, that we actually have the town site of San Hieronimo three, that it's actually a place where they built structures, where a lot of people lived, where other activities went on and so on. Uh, and

then I'll stop and save it for the future. I want to I want to explain to listeners a little bit of what you're talking about by saving it for the future. And it's just an archaeological site that I'm kind of the only one I have any real level of, you know, Armchair Authority on. would be when the folsome site where they found it was kind of the smoking gun of humans in America during the Ice Age, where

they found Bison skeletons intermixed with projectile points. When they originally dug it, they were just looking for big ship they're looking for big bones. Later people had to go back, archaeologists later went back and had to go sift their debris pile for all the stuff they didn't think to look for, which is really helpful. Like no one thought pollen, right, no one thought about just like small chunks of wood,

little bits of charcoal, whatever else. And then later, like now, right, they have this idea that, man, if we could have just found the sort of plant matter mixed in with that stuff, it tell you something like what the climate was like you know, timey year stuff and all that. So I like like when you say like save something like who knows, and in a hundred years you might go and take a little dirt and run it through some machine and it will be like no, there's a

women here. That's exactly my point. We cannot predict what future technologies are going to be able to tell us, what the future analyses are going to be able to tell us, and that's what we have to be cognizant of. I'm collecting as much data as I can. Well, you know, like I said, this is the only coronado structure that we know of that has a cannon in it. So

I have a responsibility there. Now I would only dig half of it if I could figure the structure out without digging the whole thing, but I need to dig the whole thing, unfortunately, and I'm going to dig some others that are associated with it, but for the most part the town site is going to remain intact so that some other professional can come and ask new questions, uh, using new technologies, new types of analyzes, and answer questions

that I can't even fathom right now. But in terms of you demonstrating like hey, this is something that needs to be paid attention to and needs to be protected. I mean you gotta be Oh, we're there. I was there basically the first day. I mean, you know, the first first day we had like a half a dozen of the gabled headed nails, and then the second day we had a crossbow bolt head with many more of them and other artifacts, and then it just kept building.

And so we knew we had coronado. At that time I thought it was just an encampment and then it got bigger and bigger. So even if it was just an encampment with just those things, that would be important because none had been found in Arizona. None had been found in the fift miles between Compostella and Zuni. Right. So Uh. So, in and of itself that was important.

And then after a while it's I tried to explain the battle ofvience away other ways, because that's what I'm supposed to do as an archaeologists consider all of the possible explanations for what I'm finding, and finally I had to settle on the battle. And then once we figured out it was a battle site, then I started back checking through the records, recognizing that maybe not all battles were accounted for in the documents because they weren't supposed

to be fighting the natives. But it started making sense with it being sent heronomous. So I don't think anybody who's actually heard the data, seeing the data and so on, and we've had lots of archaeologists and historians of the site, I don't think they questioned that at Suya in the Siuja Valley, send heronimo three in the Suja Valley. I think the questions are is um whether it was an actual official town site, because that was a contractual thing

with the king, and I'm arguing that. I think there's enough evidence in the documentary reacted to say that there that it was. And then the other thing that some of the people are disputing is the way the route went. Well, I have four sights and they line up West East. At this point I'm trying to check other possibilities, but right now that's what it's suggesting, which might suggest a route that's a little further west, even in in Sonora.

But that the reason I object to everybody insisting that it goes up the Sonora and then down the San Pedro and it has to be that with a sidetrack is because that's what everybody's thought and they haven't found any evidence of Coronado. And here I found evidence Coronado Becau has. I haven't accepted that as God's turn. Yeah, you thought that's not the route. Yeah, that's kind of my point. That's how we archaeologists constructive and they think it's a side route. I said, well, did you find

the evidence there? So I'm trying to check. I'd love to see the main route. Yeah, exactly, but I mean that's the whole point here. Is the thing that irritates me about that is they keep trying to pull me back into the Rut of old thinking, and the only reason I'm finding this is I'm thinking outside the box. I'm I'm considering all other possibilities that I can think of and as I search and find things, the new

possibilities come to mind and I check those out. So if they keep trying to pull me back into the you know, it has to be Sonora River and it has to be San Pedro, then I start thinking like everybody's been thinking and I need to think. Okay, I've got four sites, how do I connect them? I have a fifth artifact that needs to somehow come into that, plus this halo of things. How would those fit together? Well, trying to connect the two on the West to the

two on the east, on the southeast. Is that one trail or do we have two trails or more trails? You know, the funny thing about this rock art that I brought up earlier is there's a signature on the side of the Rock and it looks it's scratched in and it looks like it says t o b a R and that was one of the captain, one of the lieutenants, uh, Pedro Da Tovar, and uh, I think people are gonna want to know this. How does one date stuff it scratched into a rock? You don't. I

mean if it's scratched in. Basically, on the rock art that I showed you can see that some of it is older than others because some has regained some weathering on it right. So if you have one rock you can tell by some is older because it's more weather and some is fresher. Some of it overlies older stuff.

So that's one way. It's all relative dating. But also, as I was kind of discussing earlier, uh, if you analyze this rock art in relation to a codex from Cortes, the Cortes period in Mexico, you can see that the dress, shoes, hat and everything is just like what cortes is wearing in one of the images. So Um. So basically that's another way to data as well. Now, that's not going to convince everybody, and not everybody is going to be

convinced that the signature says Tobar. There's also a cross above it, which is what Spaniards did when they were signing their name and documents and writing documents on paper. So I mean, if we just had that, then I'd say maybe some natives saw that, saw the expedition in a different valley and carved it when they got home. But we have coronado artifacts associated with it, uh, and we have these clearings. So it looks like it's campsite. Now it's possible that it's a side route or a

second route. We know that Pedro Tovar went on other side trips. He took a detachment and went and discovered other places or inspected other places and so on. People were already there, so it wasn't discovered. But uh, so it's very likely that when they were coming through they were looking for an alternate route and he may have gone off. So it's possible. So that's the third possibility.

We have two routes. We have a route that UH, dips down to the southeast and connects them all, or we have one route to the northeast from where we're at, and this is a side trip where he went to look to see if there was gold or water. You know, uh, we may be able to tell by the time I finish, but at a certain point I'm going to stop looking and somebody else is gonna have to fill in and I get to tell the story I the way I want, if I'm the one looking for the sites and finding them.

Will you stay on? Will you stay on Coronado till you die, or you think you'll get onto something, get onto something else? Well, I'm planning to live to a D and twenty, so I think by the time I get to a hundred I'm probably gonna stop looking, but you're gonna stay on the Coronado deal as long as it's interesting to me. That's how I do things. I don't have to do this, I do this because it's interesting. I feel like I'm at the top of my career.

I've spent all this time learning how to do this well, uh, and there's nothing I'd rather do in retirement. This is kind of my golf game and uh, I'm not really especially in the Gulf. So it's my way of uh, entertaining myself, keeping my mind engaged, staying healthy mentally when I'm out in the field. It keeps me healthy and physically it's good exercise, Um, and it's so intriguing. It's for me. You know, the people in the Coronado expedition.

Someone went to get rich and everything, but everybody was kind of on an adventure, which is unfortunate for the native people. That's kind of what modern tourism is like. In a way. We kind of damage cultures as we go and embark on our adventures. But Um, but in a way this is an adventure for me. I'm discovering

new things. Uh, it's every day is an adventure. I mean, people the crew keeps saying the site keeps giving it's amazing what we thought it was and how it keeps growing and all this interesting UH knowledge and artifacts that keep coming out that allow us to enrich the story and as long as it keeps doing that and as long as people keep giving me access landowners, and as long as we keep finding things, and as long as I continue to have volunteers who are as enthusiastic and

dedicated as they are, I'll just keep doing it until I get tired of it or I run out of money. You know, this is all self supported, although I did have a couple of donors recently donate to the research part and then we've had some donors donate to the film, documentary film, but we need a lot more donors to make that happen. So tell and conclusion, tell us how you know if someone wants to volunteer or lens support, like, how was the best way to go learn about what

you have going on, connect with you or your people. If, if, if someone, someone's like Hey, I got one of them bronze hats. Well, if they have one of those, they can talk to you guys and get my phone number directly, but it's better be real, not one of those Uh tinfoil ones, Um uh. Well, I have a web page that has some contact information on there, and the film, Uh documentary films by Professional Documentary Film Crew Francis Kasi

Films and uh they she has a web page. Uh and uh do you have a title for that yet or for the film? No, we haven't decided. But we have cornado films ll LC, and there's ways that people can donate to that, either directly, if they don't need a tax deduction, or through from the heart productions, which is a nonprofit. So you can get a tax credit for that. And then I have an organization that I'm working with that UH takes the money in for the research and would take sizeable sums in or small sums

for the film, without taking anything off the top. So there's a variety of ways to do it and I would appreciate it because, like I said, I totally self funded, except for these more recent donations that have coming in. People are really getting thrilled about what we're finding and so on. You gotta have some universities beating your door

down now. Oh No, they're jealous. Um, don't forget to mention you have a youtube channel with some interesting like a little about dating, like you're asking like how do you know when you're looking at whatever? Just mentioned that, and then also your academia web page with like all of your papers, books. I mean there's so much open information that we could where we can go to read your work right. So on Youtube, it's just under my name.

You can find it and there's some corn on that other stuff, D e n I, and then s e y m o U R, and then the academia page the same. It's under independent UH researcher. I think. Also with research gate, same thing, although that has fewer articles. You can download articles for free on there. You don't have to pay to get on UH. And then I have a Web page that I'm just starting up. The old one I forgot to pay for and it's kind of a funk, so I'm starting to do Um, it

needed to be updated anyway. Yeah, and all your listeners, I will link to this and all of her I'll link to all of this in the show notes and Um. Yeah, and the film is really what we're looking for funding for now. I just saw a rough cut of it the other day. Oh, it was fabulous. I was scared because I we archaeologists like to be behind the camera, not in front, and so I was prepared to be really embarrassed. They did in a phenomenal ask as a

host seriously because you care, but not too much. It's like a sweet spot. Well, thank you, I've got I've got one more last question. It might be the most important one, to be honest. I mean in the film Indiana Jones and the last crusade, that movie opens with River Phoenix as a young Indiana Jones, stumbling onto some grave robbers, if you want to call him that, finding a crucifix from the Coronado Expedition, and then he has

to he tries to protect it and escapes. I'm just wondering if you two have ever, uh, protected any of your fines by by jumping onto a passing circus train and falling into a pit of snakes, leading into your lifelong phobia of snakes that will follow you over the restaurant. I do have a lifelong phobia of rattle snakes because I've run into probably a thousand of them since I was a little tiny girl. Um, I did find Coronado's

cross on our site. One day. Two of my crew members called me over and they had an ice chest right there, so I kind of knew something was up. Metal detective and they had planted this Coronado's cross with fake jewels on it. Yeah, so, normally we don't plant things like that because it can distract, you know, but I thought it was pretty funny. So so I wrote to Harrison Ford asking if he would contribute, because here's the real, you know, real deal here. Uh, and I

never heard back from his agent. But Um, if you're out there, you know we need funding for the film. We have an Emmy Award winning director, uh, and so on. So that's great. Yeah, so look forward to seeing it. Yeah, me too. Good luck. Thank you. Thanks for having me stay in touch with Karin. So you know, we can have like an update in a year or two. Sure. Yeah, absolutely, and then maybe, uh, if Steve decide to not claim artifacts from mother dig sides, you can go volunteer with

Danny and satisfier, like an antiquities looter. We checked. It's like, you know, some people have like a devil and a angel. I got like an antiquities looter on one shoulder and archeology and I got two dragons here gone and snakes, none of that. None of that. Well, thanks. Yeah, there's so much coming. I hope some people reach out and they might have a hot tip, because I could I could picture some dude out hunting antelope or desert big horns and he'd be like, you know, I've seen something

like that one time. Well, we'll name the side after somebody if they come forward with something, an expedition. In fact, I've already promised that to one guy who you're sweeting the deal. You don't get to keep it, put on your mantle, but on the map it will be. Well. If they found it on private land, they do get to keep it, but we'd hope that if they realize what it is, that upon their death or sooner, they would agree to put it somewhere where it can be available,

you know. So everybody keep your eyes peeled. Brass helmets, cannons, crosses with jewels, the jeweling crossed cross. If you find that, Danny Seymour as the person you talk to, not Indiana Jones. Thanks everyone,