As indicated by an investigation published in the journal Science, a series of footprints imprinted on what was once the muddy shore of a lake in New Mexico could turn out to be some of the strongest evidence yet that humans reached the American continent much earlier than previously thought. The footprints, of children and adolescents, are 23,000 to 21,000 years old. Until now, however, it was thought that the first humans did not arrive in America until 13,000 years ago.
The evidence is more than sixty “ghost tracks” (so called because they appear and disappear from the landscape) that clearly show that members of our species traversed what is now White Sands National Park, in New Mexico, during the height of the last Ice Age.
Leading a team of researchers from various institutions, geophysicist Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University in Pole, England, used various methods to calculate the age of the tracks, including radiocarbon dating of aquatic plants embedded in the footprints themselves. . “One of the most beautiful things about footprints is that, unlike stone tools or bones, they cannot be moved up or down in stratigraphy,” says Bennett. “They are fixed and very precise,” adds the specialist.
America was the last of the continents to be occupied by man, but the exact moment our ancestors arrived is the subject of great scientific debate. Historically, researchers have thought that the first humans reached the new continent on foot, crossing the Bering Bridge, which some 13,000 years ago physically connected Asia with North America, following the retreat of the enormous Laurentian ice sheet, which after having covered North America for thousands of years, it had retreated into the Arctic. Yet a host of recent discoveries in both North and South America, including ancient tools in Texas and 30,000-year-old animal bones in Mexican caves, strongly suggest that humans got there much earlier. .
In this sense, the importance of the find is such that other archaeologists demand new tests that confirm without a doubt the dates found by Bennett and his colleagues. If these data are confirmed, it would be necessary to rewrite the textbooks, and it would also confirm the extraordinary ability of those humans to survive and prosper during a time of extreme climatic conditions.
According to the study, the tracks were left over two millennia, mainly by children and adolescents who roamed the mosaic of waterways that defined the area during the Ice Age. The tracks were also found along with other mammoths, giant sloths and other megafauna that came to the same area in search of water.
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