Humans and Mastodons Coexisted in Florida, New Evidence Shows

In Florida, it seems, has always been a popular destination. Even the first known Americans gravitated to the state. Of course, they probably went for the mastodons. Underwater archaeologists and other researchers have taken a second look at a sinkhole 30 feet deep in the
Aucilla River in northern Florida that is rich with remnants of stone tools, as well as fossilized mastodon bones and dung. Although scientists had studied the location, known as the Page-Ladson site, for more than a decade and knew how old some of the material was, they could not come up with definitive evidence that humans and mastodons were there at the same time. Now, the researchers say, the discovery of an unmistakable human artifact, a stone knife fragment, embedded in sand and dung that allowed for exact dating, proves that paleoindians, as archaeologists call the first people to come to North America, colonized northern Florida by 14,550 years ago.