MIAMI — Here at the north bank of the Miami River, beside a luxury hotel where the water meets Biscayne Bay, sits Miami’s Plymouth Rock, a recently discovered Indian village where 2,000 years ago the Tequesta people under thatched roofs feasted on shark.

Now it is the subject of a more modern form of combat, pitting development against history to determine whether a new entertainment complex will soon bury most of it forever in a city that always has been more prone to chasing the next big thing than lingering too long on the old one.

Preservationists say the site is among the most significant Indian villages ever found in the United States, and is especially noteworthy in South Florida because it illustrates that Miami’s history dates back further than most people here realize.

Preserved for the past 80 years under a parking lot, the site once served as an Army fort, a plantation and a hotel that signified the birth of a modern city.