Archaeologists have found... (Associated Press) 
 
 PARRIS ISLAND, S.C. (AP) — Archaeologists have found the location of a long-sought Spanish fort on the South Carolina coast at the site of what was once the first capital of Spanish Florida. A release from the University of South Carolina says the site of San Marcos, one of five forts built during the 21-year history of the early settlement of Santa Elena, has finally been located on Parris Island near Hilton Head Island. Today, researchers using radar, electric currents and magnetic waves have pinpointed exactly where they built it.  In this undated image provided by Amanda Thompson with the University of Georgia shows archeologists Chester DePratter, left, with the University of South Carolina and Victor Thompson, right, of the University... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this undated image provided by Amanda Thompson with the University of Georgia shows archeologists Chester DePratter, left, with the University of South Carolina and Victor Thompson, right, of the University of Georgia, running ground penetrating radar across a land grid. Fort San Marcos founder Pedro Menendez de Aviles “didn’t leave us with a map of Santa Elena, so remote sensing is allowing us to create a town plan that will be important to interpreting what happened here 450 years ago and for planning future research,” DePratter said. The outpost went up in six days, with large pieces already made off-site to protect against an attack by Native Americans. As long as there is some physical change that accompanies those behaviors, then we can image it.” 
 
 Santa Elena was founded in 1566 by Pedro Menendez de Aviles. Its whereabouts remained a mystery until 1979, when archaeologists found evidence while digging on the Parris Island golf course. Ground-penetrating radar and magnetometers located the outlines of the lost Fort San Marcos near Beaufort, amid the footprint of a church, courts, shops, taverns and farms that comprised the 1566 settlement of Santa Elena. Using ground-penetrating radar and other high-tech equipment last month, they found the site and are publishing the details of their work this week in The Journal of Archaeology Science Reports. The resulting information will be included in future exhibits at the Santa Elena History Center, which opened this year in downtown Beaufort to tell the story of the early settlement.
– After two decades of searching, archaeologists have finally discovered the location of a Spanish fort missing for 450 years: a golf course in South Carolina, the Beaufort Gazette reports. According to the AP, Fort San Marcos—built in 1577 and occupied for five years—was discovered last month under a golf course on Parris Island by two researchers. They used improving technology, included radar and magnetic waves, to succeed where years of old-fashioned hole digging had failed, the Post and Courier reports. While the remains of Fort San Marcos are still buried, the location in itself is a hard-won and important find. “This work will allow us to tell the story of the land that would eventually become the United States,” one of the researchers says. Fort San Marcos was built more than 100 years before English settlers arrived in what is now South Carolina. Spanish documents give a description and drawing of the fort, but not its location—that was finally given away by the fort's old post holes. Fort San Marcos was built in the settlement of Santa Elena, which was discovered in 1979—nearly 100 years after it was abandoned in the midst of attacks by the English. It consisted of barracks, storerooms, and 11 cannons. Researchers employed the same method used to discover the location of Fort San Marcos to learn a little more about Santa Elena, mapping its shops, taverns, a church, and more.