Human Bones Found in Florida Yard Date Back 2,400 Years

When a woman digging in her yard on the Florida Keys last fall turned up a jawbone and part of a human skull, detectives immediately could tell the bones had been there a while -- "possibly as long as 75 years," the sheriff's office said at the time.

Now the Monroe County Medical Examiner's office said the results of radiocarbon dating tests are in and the bones are much older -- about 2,400 years -- placing them in the time period of 200-440 B.C.

"Having yet another date on human remains is spectacular," forensic anthropologist Heather Walsh-Haney of Florida Gulf Coast University, who was called in to help with the investigation, told AOL News in a telephone interview today. "What starts out as a forensic case ends up being something that really adds to the picture of ancient people in Florida."

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