Trove from Fort San Juan delights archaeologists

Archaeologists are a patient lot who count time by eons and measure progress in inches.

But even Rob Beck can't contain his excitement that word is getting out -- finally -- about a dig in Burke County that indicates Spanish explorers were in the interior of North Carolina two decades before the English attempted to settle Roanoke Island. Tonight, UNC-TV will air a half-hour documentary about the failed Fort San Juan being excavated north of Morganton.

"This is wonderful," Beck said Wednesday. "It's extraordinarily gratifying for all of us."