Native American hunter-gatherers first arrived in what is now Appalachia over 16,000 years ago. The earliest discovered site is the Meadowcroft Rockshelter in Washington County, Pennsylvania, which some scientists claim is pre-Clovis culture. Several other Archaic period (8000–1000 BC) archaeological sites have been identified in the region, such as the St. Albans site in West Virginia and the Icehouse Bottom site in Tennessee. The presence of Africans in the Appalachian Mountains dates back to the sixteenth century with the arrival of European colonists. Enslaved Africans were first brought to America during the 16th century Spanish expeditions to the mountainous regions of the South. In 1526 enslaved Africans were brought to the Pedee River region of western North Carolina by Spanish explorer, Lucas Vazquez de Ayllõn. Enslaved Africans also accompanied the expeditions of Fernando de Soto in 1540 and Juan Pardo, in 1566 who both traveled through Appalachia.