Ancient Human Footprints in New Mexico Dated to Ice Age

The Scientist ^ | September 23, 2021 | Rachael Moeller Gorman

[SunkenCiv]

Researchers excavated human footprints out of a small bluff next to a dried-up playa lake and radiocarbon-dated embedded seeds to around 23,000 years ago. Their results suggest that people entered the Americas thousands of years earlier than the accepted estimate.

...some of these prints could be tens of thousands of years old, making them potentially the best evidence yet that people reached the Americas far earlier than once believed. Radiocarbon dating of seeds surrounding the prints suggests that they were made during the Last Glacial Maximum, when massive ice sheets are thought to have blocked any passage from the Bering Land Bridge into southern North America...

White Sands National Park contains a vast windswept field of gypsum dunes where children go sand sledding and an alkali flat that stretches for miles. From around 36,000–19,000 years ago, this alkali flat, called Lake Otero, contained varying levels of water...

The researchers eventually found one promising site on the eastern edge of the alkali flat. They began excavating and discovered multiple layers of human footprints, as well as interspersed mammoth prints. Most importantly, the team uncovered seeds from an ancient ditch grass called Ruppia cirrhosa sprinkled within various layers. Radiocarbon dating of the seeds established the ages of the multiple layers that contained tracks at between 21,000 and 23,000 years old, long before the ice sheets retreated. While in recent years researchers have reported possible evidence for human occupation of North America at even earlier timepoints, the earliest well-accepted site of human activity in the Americas remains Monte Verde in Chile, which dates to around 15,000 BP, and many researchers remain unconvinced that humans entered the continents much earlier.

[SunkenCiv]

Prints at the base of the excavation trench

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, USGS, AND BOURNEMOUTH UNIVERSITY

[Macho MAGA Man]

Simply amazing. Thanks for posting.

[SunkenCiv]

There’s probably an earlier topic, I guess I’ve been sloughing off. That’s what she said, anyway.

Researchers: Oldest Human Footprints in North America Are in New Mexico
https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/researchers-oldest-human-footprints-in-north-america-are-in-new-mexico/6244455.html

Ancient Human Presence Revealed At White Sands National Park
Researchers Push Back Date Of Human Arrival In North America Thousands Of Years
By Kurt Repanshek
https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2021/09/ancient-human-presence-revealed-white-sands-national-park

Ancient footprints in New Mexico raise questions about when humans inhabited North America
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/ancient-footprints-in-new-mexico-raise-questions-about-when-humans-inhabited-north-america

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure.

[Cold Heart]

Next year it will be 15,001 BP

[SunkenCiv]

The rest of the Trackways keyword, sorted:

• Utah Officials Accused Of Driving Over Precious Dinosaur Footprints In Heavy Machinery [BLM] [02/08/2022]
• Mysterious Footprints Suggest Neanderthals Climbed a Volcano Right After It Erupted [01/04/2022]
• Age constraints for the Trachilos footprints from Crete [10/12/2021]
• 87 Neanderthal footprints found on an ancient Iberian shoreline [04/20/2021]
• 120,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Have Been Discovered in Saudi Arabia [09/18/2020]
• Africa's biggest collection of ancient human footprints has been found [05/17/2020]
• Dozens of dinosaur footprints reveal ancient ecosystem of Alaskan Peninsula [11/03/2019]
• Ancient footprints show Neanderthals may have been taller than thought [09/28/2019]
• 'Treasure trove' of dinosaur footprints uncovered by strong storms [12/18/2018]
• The Grand Canyon's Oldest Footprints Are 310 Million Years Old [10/29/2018]
• World's oldest animal footprints: revealing strange burrowing creature that lived 550M years ago [06/10/2018]
• In Footprints on Scotland's Isle of Skye, Signs of a Dinosaur Playground [04/04/2018]
• Romanian cave holds some of the oldest human footprints [07/21/2014]
• Scientists find 800,000-year-old footprints in UK [02/08/2014]
• Scientists Find 800,000-Year-Old Footprints In UK [02/07/2014]
• Oldest Human Footprints in North America Identified [12/13/2013]
• Roman child's footprints found [02/17/2011]
• Fossil tracks record 'oldest land-walkers' [01/07/2010]
• Ancient Artisans' Footprints Discovered Beneath Lod Mosaic [10/14/2009]
• Footprints found under ancient mosaic [10/14/2009]
• Prints Are Evidence of Modern Foot in Prehumans [02/26/2009]
• Japanese team finds 'yeti footprints' in Nepal [10/20/2008]
• Rock-solid Proof? (Man and Dinosaur Walked the Earth Together?) [07/31/2008]
• One Million-Years-Old (Human) Footprints Found At Margalla Hills (Pakistan) [07/28/2007]
• Ancient footprints found on Welsh beach [02/12/2007]
• Man Makes Casts Of Purported Bigfoot Footprints(MN) [06/15/2006]
• Footprints Reveal Ancient Outback Life (More) [12/26/2005]
• Footprints Of Paleolithic Man Found On Cheju Island (Korea - 50k yo) [02/06/2004]
• Footprints And Fire Found From 20,000 Years Ago (Tibet) [03/27/2002]

  ---

• Footprints In The Ash (Human-Mexico-40,000-YA) [05/31/2008]
• Ancient footprints found in Mexico valley [10/27/2006]
• Cloud Of Scholarly Dust Rises Over Ancient (Human) Footprints Claim (40K YO - Mexico) [04/25/2006]
• 'Footprints' Debate To Run And Run (40K YO Human Footprints, Mexico) [01/17/2006]
• Alleged 40,000-Year-Old Human Footprints In Mexico Much, Much Older Than Thought [11/30/2005]
• 40,000-year-old footprint of first Americans [07/05/2005]

[SunkenCiv]

The earlier topics:

• Ancient Footprints Push Back Date of Human Arrival in the Americas [09/23/2021]
• Fossil footprints show humans in North America more than 21,000 years ago [09/24/2021]
• Etched in sands of time: 'We knew they were old' (Human footprints - oldest known humans in America 23,000 years ago) [09/24/2021]

[logi_cal869]

Awwww, lookee there: I thought that science was settled.

/s

[SunkenCiv]

:^D

[SunkenCiv]

:^) And some thought the West was settled much, much later.

[Magnum44]

I feel like they omitted the most fascinating part of the story...

🤣

[dainbramaged]

The establishment archeologists have a difficult time letting go of the Clovis assumptions.

[logi_cal869]

I would like to have seen more study of the Hueyatlaco site, but they sure were in a hurry to bury it, weren’t they?

http://hueyatlaco.blogspot.com/2016/

[SunkenCiv]

lol

[miliantnutcase]

I knew you would spot this article. It’s a good one! Still makes me think what former civilizations existed around that time that would have been covered up when the sea levels returned to normal.

[Bob434]

i was abotu to comment that the prints were from Sasquatch, not man lol

[Arcadian Empire]

Close to the ancient footprints was an ancient note warning about global freezing.

[SunkenCiv]

Same here.

[Beowulf9]

I saw this on the bbc show iceage something or other and it was made a few years ago. Why don”t they tell when this discovery was made.

[Bikkuri]

"15,000 BP"

What is BP? (Before Present?)