Ancient “ghost tracks” have been unearthed in the American southwest, and they have big implications for human history in North America.
Scientists have found footprints dating to approximately 23,000 years ago in New Mexico’s White Sands National Park, and they offer evidence that humans have been on this continent longer than previously proven.
“Despite a plethora of archaeological research over the past century, the timing of human migration into the Americas is still far from resolved,” begins a study on the footsteps, published Thursday in the journal Science.
The findings suggest that people have been present in North America for about two millennia. Previously, the earliest known human footprints in North America, found in Canada, dated to about 13,000 years ago.
“The peopling of the Americas is one of those things that has been for many years very contentious and a lot of archeologists hold views with almost religious zeal,” study author and Bournemouth University ancient footprint specialist Matthew Bennett told CNN. “It’s the first unequivocal site and a good data point that places people in the American southwest around the last glacial maximum.”
Evidence of humans in North America during the last glacial maximum. Bennett et al.Scientists report the fossilized footprints were made by children and teens living in the area during the last Ice Age’s peak, or the last glacial maximum. During this time, the northern third of North America was covered in ice sheets reaching as far as New York City. The kids are believed to have been doing for their elders, and also just hanging out.
In addition to living through an ice age, the bygone humans were also co-existing with enormous creatures, including giant ground sloths and mammoths, study authors found.
Despite the wildly different landscapes of then and now, the reason the tracks were likely left by children and not adults will feel familiar to modern parents: Kids have apparently always stomped around a lot.
