FSU Researchers discover oldest human settlement in southeast

THE TOOLS OF EARLY MAN

AUCILLA RIVER , FLFSU RESEARCH

45 minutes from Tallahassee is the Aucil la River - now the oldest knownsite of human l i fe in the southeastern United States .

FSU Assistant Professor of Anthropology Jessi Hall igan and researchersfrom Texas A&M and University of Michigan discovered evidence of human

activity dating back

14 ,550 years

Divers excavated the site 30 feet below the surface of the Aucil la :

Stone tools and mastodon bones were recovered from the site .

One mastodon tusk bared cutmarks from a tool in a layer more

than 14 ,000 years old .

Prior to this discovery , scientistsbel ieved a group of people cal ledClovis sett led the area about

13 ,200 years ago .

Using the latest radiocarbon techniques , researchers dated theart i facts origins to about 14 ,550 years ago .

"The new discoveries at Page-Ladson show thatpeople were l iv ing in the Gulf Coast area much

earl ier then believed .

I t 's pretty excit ing . We thought we knew theanswers to how and when we got here , but now

the story is changing . "

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