Joara | EXPLORING JOARA FOUNDATION

Join Exploring Joara Foundation

If you wish to donate, please click the Donate button on the left. If you would like to be become a member of the Exploring Joara Foundation, you can either click the Membership button on the left or print out the application below, fill it out and mail it in.

Our success depends on your donations and memberships. We are grateful for each of them.

Membership Application

Join Exploring Joara Foundation (EJF) as we seek to preserve and protect these irreplaceable sites. Rich in artifacts, these sites hold the secrets of our 16th-century Native American and Spanish heritage.

In 1996, an archaeological study of Upper Creek and Warrior Fork in western North Carolina, identified 26 North Carolina Native American sites. As of 2009, almost half of those Native American sites were already covered by commercial development. These Spanish and Native American resources are unique and non-renewable.

As many as 100 to 200 additional historic sites are yet to be found. Each year, unique and important archaeological resources from the 16th and 17th centuries are lost to development in North Carolina’s Catawba and Yadkin river valleys.

The Exploring Joara Foundation is committed to public archaeology and the study of Native American and Spanish settlements in the upper Catawba and Yadkin river valleys between 1450 and 1700. The Exploring Joara Foundation is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization committed to a comprehensive regional public archaeology program in western North Carolina’s Catawba and Yadkin River valleys.

The Exploring Joara Foundation offers lectures, work- shops, field trips, and opportunities for students, teachers, and the general public, to work with professional archaeologists and to contribute directly to the important archaeological work in this region.

Help the Exploring Joara Foundation Unearth the Forgotten Past.

Membership Application