The area of the modern city of Jacksonville
has been inhabited for thousands of years. On Black Hammock Island in the
national Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, a University of North
Florida team discovered some of the oldest remnants of pottery in the United
States, dating to 2500 BC. In the 16th century, the beginning of the historical
era, the region was inhabited by the Mocama, a coastal subgroup of the Timucua
people. At the time of contact with Europeans, all Mocama villages in
present-day Jacksonville were part of the powerful chiefdom known as the
Saturiwa, centered around the
