TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Archaeologists say they've uncovered a stone knife in a sinkhole near Tallahassee that dates back 14,550 years.
The scientists published their results last week and say the knife is evidence that people were in North America prior to the Clovis period. For most of the past century, archaeologists believed the first people known as the Clovis Culture arrived about 13,000 years ago. But they say the knife, along with other evidence, show people gathered around a small pond near what's now the Gulf of Mexico more than 14,000 years ago.
The Florida Times-Union (http://tinyurl.com/z9ywuva ) reports the knife was found under four meters of sediment that was radiocarbon-dated to 14,550 years ago.
Scientists have been searching the area since the 1980s and have found other stone tools, the bones of extinct animals and a giant mastodon tusk.
