University of Florida (Florida Museum of Natural History)

The Florida Museum of Natural History will inventory, stabilize, and rehouse the collection of 20,500 artifacts and associated records from archaeological excavations of the seventeenth-century Franciscan mission site of San Juan del Puerto, located near modern-day Jacksonville, Florida, and will make the collections available for study through an online database, the Comparative Mission Archaeological Portal. The collections have the potential to provide important insights into the introduction of Christianity into North America, the organization of missions, and how they changed through time with the introduction of epidemic diseases, incursions from English militias, and shifts in the economy of La Florida. The mission also has historic importance as the home base of Friar Francisco Pareja, one of the central figures in the establishment of the Franciscan mission system in southeastern North America.