the Yustaga) at the time of European contact corresponds to the area of the Suwannee Valley culture. Suwannee Valley ceramics were displaced by Leon Jefferson ceramics during the Spanish mission period (the 17th century). Early history and European contact The area has been inhabited for thousands of years. In the first millennium AD the region's inhabitants participated in the Weedon Island culture, which spread across much of western Florida and beyond. From about 900 a derivative culture emerged in the Suwannee Valley area, known as the Suwannee Valley culture. This culture was common to all the Suwannee Valley peoples (the Northern Utina and the Yustaga), and as a Weedon Island derivative was closely related to the Alachua culture of the Potano. It is particularly distinguished by its ceramics. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Northern Utina lived in small community groups, perhaps representing localized chiefdoms, separated from each other by considerable distances. John E. Worth suggests that these may have been organized into a larger regional chiefdom that was continuous from at least the early days of European contact through the 17th century. Early European accounts record certain chiefs as paramount over others, while during the 17th-century towns in the Timucua Province were missionized evidently based on their preeminence. This may be evidence of a continuous regional chiefdom, but Worth notes it must have been much looser than more integrated Timucua chiefdoms such as the eastern Utina, the Saturiwa, or the Potano. Large-scale monuments such as platform mounds, often signs of integrated regional chiefdoms, have not been found in Northern Utina territory, and ceramic dating may vary from community to community, suggesting disunity. The Northern Utina probably encountered the survivors of the Narváez expedition in 1528, but the earliest definite historical record of them is in the accounts of Hernando de Soto's expedition, which passed through their territory in 1539. These accounts indicate that the Northern Utina were more populous than any other tribe De Soto had yet encountered, and lived in distinct villages that were subordinate to a chief named Aguacaleycuen. Aguacaleycuen's main village was located on the Ichetucknee River, perhaps at the Fig Springs archaeological site. Aguacaleycuen was allied with (and possibly related to) another chief on the other side of the Suwannee River, Uzachile, whose chiefdom may correspond with the later Yustaga chiefdom. Upon reaching Aguacaleycuen's village De Soto captured the chief, as was his custom, intending to