On Parris Island, South Carolina, this site preserves overlapping remains of the French outpost of Charlesfort, founded in 1562, and the Spanish settlement of Santa Elena, established in 1566 and later the first capital of Spanish Florida. Their sequence reveals early colonial rivalry on the Atlantic coast: Charlesfort collapsed amid isolation, mutiny, supply failure, and conflict, while Santa Elena developed through successive forts before its final abandonment in 1587. Archaeology eventually confirmed both occupations through French artifacts and multiple moats, and also uncovered the continent’s only known early Spanish pottery kiln. Exceptionally well preserved, the site is crucial to understanding the earliest French and Spanish colonial efforts in what is now the United States.