Posted on 10/27/2006 6:10:16 PM PDT by FLOutdoorsman
MEXICO CITY - A trail of 13 fossilized footprints running through a valley in a desert in northern Mexico could be among the oldest in the Americas, Mexican archeologists said.
The footprints were made by hunter gatherers who are believed to have lived thousands of years ago in the Coahuila valley of Cuatro Cienegas, 190 miles (306 kms) south of Eagle Pass, Texas, said archaeologist Yuri de la Rosa Gutierrez of Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.
"We believe (the footprints) are between 10,000 and 15,000 years old," De la Rosa said in a news release Wednesday. "We have evidence of the presence of hunter gatherers in the Coahuila desert more than 10,000 years ago."
De la Rosa said there have only been initial tests to find the age of the prints and more tests will be carried out both in Mexico and at a laboratory in Bristol in Great Britain.
The oldest discovered footprints in the Western hemisphere are in Chile, and are believed to be 13,000 years old. There 6,000-year old footprints in the U.S. state of California, in Brazil and in Nicaragua.
The age of the Mexican footprints is dwarfed by those found in Africa. The oldest known hominid foot marks are in Laetoli, in Tanzania, and are believed to have been made 3.5 million years ago.
The Cuatro Cienegas footprints were discovered in May embedded in a white rock called travertine, it said in the news release.
Each footprint is 10 inches (27 cm) long and under an inch (2 cm) deep. They spread over a distance of 30 feet (10 meters).
It is likely they were imprinted in mud and preserved by some rapid change in the environment, said Arturo Gonzalez, director of the Desert Museum, in the Coahuila state capital of Saltillo.
"There must have been a natural phenomenon to rapidly cover them so they were not rubbed out and were perfectly preserved," Gonzalez said.
ping.
The "danty foot" tribe will undoubtably claim rights to them.
They were heading for the border, no doubt.
Let me guess, they were trying to sneak into the US then too.
Ping
My though exactly. "We're heading Norht, to American... the rush is on!..."
Helen Thomas?
Beat me, damn it!
Glen Rose, TX ping!
I'm just curious. If the belief is still that people came to the Americas via a land bridge from Siberia during an ice age, why are the oldest known footprints in Mexico and/or Peru?
susie
Good question. There are believed to have been several migrations, and I think the Kon-Tiki proved that SA was reachable by reed boat from ... Africa? ... I forget.
Oh, yeah, I vaguely remember that. I didn't know if they had really accepted it, it seems to me like a long journey to bring enough people to start a civilization by boat, but maybe they've decided it was possible or likely. It's been a LONG time since I've read anything about that.
susie
Been there since, however.
Let's stick to ideas.
the first wet backs how great just what I have been waiting for I wonder if the had to push #1or #2
My recolection is that Thor Hyerdahl sailed his blsa-wood raft from Peru to Polyonesia via the Humbolt Current.
pingaroo
Why is this news? This is easily within the Macroevolutionary timescale for the settling of the Americas.
Creationist model: the Americas were settled (along with the rest of the world) some five thousand years ago or so after the Flood and Babel.
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