Mount Royal, on the east bank of the Saint Johns River near Lake George, preserves a long record of Native settlement centered on a large sand mound and surrounding village remains. First occupied around 2000 BCE during the Orange period, it was later resettled and by about 1050 had become the principal town of an important chiefdom tied to the wider Mississippian world, serving as a ceremonial and political center along the river. The town declined after 1300 but endured into the era of European arrival and later lay within the Timucua world. Excavations and early accounts made it one of the most important archaeological sites on the Saint Johns River.