A DOCUMENT containing the earliest known map of Charles Towne, the first permanent European settlement in the Carolinas, has been discovered in the archives at Aberdeen University.

The document was uncovered while staff were carrying out an assessment of historic material ahead of the creation of the university's new library and special collections centre.

It was among papers belonging to James Fraser, who was born in Inverness-shire in 1645 and educated at King's College, Aberdeen. He became tutor to one of Charles II's illegitimate sons in the mid-1660s. Some letters to and from Fraser survive in the collections at King's College, as well as rare books and manuscripts he deposited there.