Mastodon Bones Found In Florida Hint At Arrival Of First Americans

Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter

AUCILLA RIVER, Fla. (CBSMiami) -- After decades of excavation, archaeologists in northern Florida are closer to discovering more about the earliest humans to populate North America.

Researchers recently completed an underwater dig at a deep sinkhole near Tallahassee called the Page-Ladson Archaeological Site, where they found stone knives and mastodon bones, tusks and dung, as reported by Popular Mechanics.

Radiocarbon dating has determined the site to be at least 14,550 years old, which, according to popular science opinion, is about 1,000 years earlier than humans were previously thought to inhabit North America.

Mastodons were a distant cousin of the elephant that once roamed North and Central America, believed to have gone extinct from climate change and big game hunters.