Discovery might rewrite history of Spaniards in Georgia

What a high school girl found in 6 inches of South Georgia dirt last year may help rewrite the history of Europeans' earliest forays into the great, green New World that greeted them half a millennium ago.

The discovery is a glass bead no larger than a pencil eraser. It and four other beads, plus two ancient slivers of iron, may prompt historians to reconsider the presence of Spaniards in Georgia five centuries ago.

Archaeologist Dennis Blanton of the Fernbank Museum of Natural History considers the finds, which he could easily slip in his pocket, "world history in the making."