Joara

Joara was a large Native American settlement, a regional chiefdom of the Mississippian culture, located in what is now Burke County, North Carolina, about 300 miles in the interior in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Joara is notable as a significant archaeological and historic site. It was a place of encounter in 1540 between the Mississippian people and the party of Spanish conquistador Hernando De Soto.

A later expedition under Juan Pardo in 1567 created the first brief European settlement in the interior of the continent, establishing Fort San Juan at this site, together with other forts to the west. It is thought to be the first and the largest of the forts that Pardo established in an attempt to colonize the American South On July 22, 2013, archeologists announced evidence of the long-suspected Fort San Juan at Joara, after previous excavations revealed European as well as Mississippian artifacts.

In the 21st century, archaeological finds from excavations have established evidence of both substantial Mississippian and sustained Spanish 16th-century settlement in the interior of North Carolina. Joara was also the site of Fort San Juan, established by the Juan Pardo expedition as the earliest Spanish outpost (1567–1568) in the interior of what is now North Carolina. This was 40 years before the English settlement at Jamestown and nearly 20 years before their "Lost Colony" at Roanoke Island.

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