North America’s second-largest Native American settlement has long been shrouded in mystery. Where exactly was Etzanoa? And is it true, as centuries-old Spanish records claim, that 20,000 Wichita Indians lived in the 5-square-mile village and battled Spanish conquistadors in 1601? We now have some answers, thanks in part to Adam Ziegler, a teenager who crossed paths with archaeologist Donald Blakeslee a couple of years ago. Blakeslee, of Wichita State University, had just secured better translations of the Spanish records. They led him to modern-day Arkansas City, Kansas—and specifically, Adam’s grandmother’s backyard. Adam, then 15, helped Blakeslee’s team search the area with metal detectors, and Adam stumbled on key evidence of the battle: a fragment of an iron ball shot from a Spanish cannon. Blakeslee says the find has helped confirm the location of this once-thriving city, which later succumbed to disease and war. “The fact that we got the cannonball indicated that the battle was fought there,” he says, “so it removes any doubt as to whether we were looking in the right place.”