Nation IN BRIEF : FLORIDA : Spear May Be Oldest N. America Artwork

An ivory spear more than 11,000 years old, found by an amateur fossil collector who kept it in a crate for more than two decades, may be North America’s oldest artwork, researchers said. The artifact was donated to the University of Florida by Dick Ohmes, a scuba diver who found the spear shaft in the Aucilla River near Tallahassee. “The unusual thing was I found half of it and then found the other half five years later,” Ohmes said. “The two halves fit together perfectly.” The shaft resembles those used by mammoth hunters in Asiath.