Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2017
The recently published reconstruction of Hernando de Soto's route through the southeastern United States, and of the chiefdom of Coosa (Hudson et al. 1985), is critiqued. The researchers' estimates of time traveled by the expedition, their use of certain vague or unreliable sources, and their interpretation of archaeological data are questioned. These problems weaken their claims that their reconstruction is better than the Soto route originally proposed by Swanton. Of particular concern is their seeming naivete regarding the correlation of archaeological and ethnographic cultures.