The Alleged 1559 Luna Colony Site:

Terrestrial Site

The University of West Florida (UWF) has completed its 2021 field season at their alleged 1559 Spanish colony site in Pensacola, Florida. Unfortunately, once again, UWF has failed to find the requisite archeological features that would prove the location of the Luna Colony. They have not reported Spanish burials, nor have they reported Spanish fire hearths, structures, or proven refuse pits even after having dug well over a thousand excavation units (see map next page). These facts continue to plague UWF even as they continue to use numerous media outlets to promote fallacious claims of their “discovery” of the colony.

Anchorage of the Luna Fleet of Ships

The University of West Florida claims in a video posted in August of 2021 that the “entire fleet of the Luna Expedition was anchored just offshore of the terrestrial site of 8Es1.” There is absolutely no proof that is the case. Indeed, there are three Spanish ships from the 1500s wrecked on a shallow sandbar offshore from the terrestrial site, however there is no evidence that they were anchored at that spot, rather they were wind and wave driven onto the sandbar having broken their anchor lines elsewhere in Pensacola Bay during the storm. “ On the 20th day of August … the most terrible storm … that men have ever seen (struck the anchored ships) … As if the (anchor) cables were threads of string and the anchors were not of iron, the force of the wind destroyed them. It tore loose the ships (from their anchorage) (Fray Agustin Davila Padilla, Historia de la Fundacion de Mexico de la orden de Predicadores, Second Edition Brussels, 1625: translated by R. Wayne Childers and David B. Dodson).

Native Village

The University of West Florida continues to give very little attention to the Native village and two burial mounds that existed at the terrestrial site (8Es1). The Smithsonian Institution discovered the site in the late 1800s and revisited it in the 1940s. UWF is focusing mainly on the 16th-Century Spanish artifacts that have been found on the site. Native people lived on the site, perhaps periodically, for over a thousand years. They might well have salvaged the shipwrecks just offshore from their village and brought the Spanish artifacts back to their homes. The majority of the artifacts found on the site are Native, not Spanish.

Conclusion

It is less than professional for news outlets and archeological journals to report the UWF Luna Colony claims without scrutinizing the scientific data that may or may not support those claims. If site 8Es1 is the Luna
Colony, it must be substantiated by hard scientific data of Spanish features which UWF has not produced. Spanish artifacts mixed with Native artifacts in a midden is not enough to prove the Luna Colony claim of the University of West Florida. The firestorm of media blitz by UWF is not supported by sufficient factual data. The University of West Florida needs to present a complete, detailed, technical document for review by the professional community. UWF has conducted field excavations for seven years and has yet to produce such a document.

The map above depicts the extraordinary amount of archeological excavations that the University of West Florida has conducted on the East Pensacola Heights SIte (8Es1) during the past seven years. Even more excavations have been completed since this 2019 map was released. Remarkably, none of the requisite archeological features have been found that would, unequivocally, prove the presence of the Luna Colony.