Amateur archeologists will get a chance to search this summer for the lost mission of Santa Isabel de Utinahica, built in the wilderness in the 1600s for a lone friar who was dispatched to evangelize among the Indians on the edge of Spain's colonial empire.
"This was on the frontier," said Dennis Blanton, curator of native American archaeology at Atlanta's Fernbank Museum of Natural History. "It was perched on the edge of the known world in this hemisphere. A barefoot Franciscan was dropped alone into alien territory and given his marching orders to convert these Indians and probably gather a certain amount of intelligence."
Bones found in WDM belong to pioneers
West Des Moines last week.
The state archaeologist's office says it was a pioneer grave site where one person was buried.
Crews found the human skeletal remains Thursday at a site called Tallyn's Ranch in Dallas county.
Not much more there.