6,000-year-old Indian knife found in Safety Harbor

[Times photo | Joseph Garnett Jr.]

  SAFETY HARBOR -- A city work crew installing a new shelter at a park unearthed an Indian knife blade estimated to be more than 6,000 years old.

The workers found the knife on Monday at Marshall Street Park, said city spokesman Brad Purdy. A curator of archaeology from the Safety Harbor Museum of Regional History is on the site continuing an examination of the artifact.

The blade is made of stone and is about 4 inches long.

"It's amazing," said Ron Fekete, the museum's director of exhibits. "It's in almost perfect condition. The edges are very, very sharp."

At the time the knife was created, the Indian peoples living in the Tampa Bay area had not picked up the names they are known by now -- the Timucua, the Calusa and, in Safety Harbor's case -- the Tocobaga, he said. The Philippe Park mound is the largest remaining Indian mound in Tampa Bay.

While thrilling, the knife discovered Monday is not the oldest local artifact to be unearthed.

The Safety Harbor museum has two large floor-to-ceiling displays showing projectile points recovered locally. Some, from what is known as the Boot Ranch area in northern Pinellas, date back 11,000 to 12,000 years, Fekete said.

Members of the museum and city officials are at Marshall Street Park continuing to work in a trench that is about waist-deep or even a little shallower, Fekete said.

"They're extremely excited because usually where there's one, there's more," he said.

-- Eileen Schulte, Times Staff Writer

Safety Harbor Public Works employees Jacob Dawson, left, and Rick Burke sift through soil that was excavated in the Marshall Street Park. The two men had found a knife made of chert believed to be more that 6,000 years old. [Joseph Garnett, Jr., Times]