A cleanup project has opened a window to the past in Citrus County.
A Suwannee projectile point that is about 10,000 years old, a fish hook made of bone that dates back to the end of the Ice Age and a bowl found in one piece that's about 2,000 years old.
The hook, the point and hundreds of other artifacts were found in and around the main springs of the Chassahowitzka River in Citrus County.
The Southwest Florida Water Management District cleaned out the springs to improve water quality. They had archaeologists like Michael Arbuthnot on hand to deal with all they history they uncovered.
"There is a sort of sense of time travel when you find something like that," Arbuthnot said. "You pick up an artifact and the last person to have their hands on it lived in a time when there were mammoth and mastodon roaming Florida."
The artifacts that range from the Ice Age to the 20th century were put on display for the public. Evelyn Garron made sure to take a look.
"I'm impressed," Garron said. "I had no idea those kinds of things were out here."
"We knew this would be a hot spot," Arbuthnot said. "You just never know what you are going to find until you get in the spring and look."
Some of the artifacts will head back to Tallahassee, while some of them will end up at the Old Courthouse Heritage Museum in Inverness.