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The 13 pieces, ranging from half an inch to two inches long, are from 15,700 years ago, according to carbon-14 dating.
Researchers say that’s about 3,000 years older than the Clovis fluted points found throughout North America, and 2,300 years older than the points previously found at the same Cooper’s Ferry site on the Salmon River in Idaho.
Leader of the dig group, Professor Loren Davis, of Oregon State University, said: “From a scientific point of view, these discoveries add very important details about what the archaeological record of the earliest peoples of the Americas look like.
“It’s one thing to say, ‘We think that people were here in the Americas 16,000 years ago’ – it’s another thing to measure it by finding well-made artefacts they left behind.”
The findings were published in the journal Science Advances.
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