The footprints are the first irrefutable evidence that humans were actually found in America during the so-called Last Ice Max.
The researchers wrote this in the journal science. In the center there is a fine collection of footprints found in White Sand National Park, is located on the southern border of the United States. Dating shows that the oldest prints are around 23,000 years old. “This corresponds to the peak of the last glacier, also called the Last Glacial Maximum, and makes it the oldest known footprint in the Americas,” said researcher Kathleen Springer.
children and youth
Given its size, the footprints appear to have been left mainly by teenagers and young children. Only a few prints are attributed to adults. People leave their fingerprints as they search the soft mud on the shores of shallow lakes. In addition to the 23,000-year-old footprints, smaller footprints have been found; Together they testify that people have been present here for nearly 2,000 years.
Giant wolf and mammoth
And it’s not just people walking around there; Traces of mammoths, birds, large ground sloths, and monstrous wolves have also been found in the same area. “This is an important place, because all the traces we found here attest to human interactions in a landscape that was also home to extinct animals such as mammoths and ground sloths,” said study researcher Sally Reynolds. We can see how humans and animals coexisted here, and dating the prints gives us a better idea of what the landscape was like at the time.”
Contacts
But what makes the discovery of these relics so interesting, of course, is that the oldest prints are at least 23,000 years old. For years, scientists have debated hotly about when the first humans arrived in America. It is generally believed that this only happened after the North American ice sheet melted, or about 16,000 years ago. But the footprints prove that people have set foot in America before. “The White Sands provide us with the first definitive evidence of human presence in the Americas during the Last Maximum Ice Age,” said study researcher Dan Odis.
Important for earlier discoveries
In recent years, there have been early indications that humans actually roamed the Americas more than 16,000 years ago. But the hint itself isn’t very convincing. “One of the reasons this discovery is so important (for footprints, ed.) is that it makes a more plausible idea that very ancient sites do point to humans – even if the evidence they contain is less convincing. That doesn’t mean that all of these sites are real (and thus left behind). Humans were behind them over 16,000 years ago, ed.), but that means we can’t rule it out right away.”
Finally, the print also gives us a unique insight into the lives of these early “Americans.” “The footprints left at the White Sands provide an insight into what happened here,” said study researcher Matthew Bennett. “Teenagers interact with children and adults. We can see our ancestors as very functional people involved in hunting and survival, but what we see here is they also played and people of different ages gathered together.”
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