(NewsNation) — Ancient footprints in New Mexico could change the timeline of history, putting humans in North America far earlier than previously thought.
A new study has dated the footprints found at White Sands National Park, suggesting they could be as old as 23,000 years. That would mean they were created around the peak of the Last Glacial Maximum, the coldest part of the last ice age.
At that time, the area was a vast wetland full of ice age animals. If the date is correct, the footprints are likely from hunter-gatherers who traveled to the Americas over the Bering Land Bridge when sea levels were lower.
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To arrive at the date, researchers radiocarbon-dated organic sediment in core samples from the site, which gave dates for the footprints and the entire lake and river system that once existed in the area.
It’s another piece of data in a scientific debate over when our ancient ancestors reached the Americas.
For decades, scientists believed that the earliest humans to live in North America were the Clovis, around 13,000 years ago. But new discoveries suggest that indigenous people could have been in the area much earlier.
Ancient footprints are rarely preserved, but about 60 footprints were found at White Sands, with the discovery reported in 2021. That study initially dated the prints between 21,000 and 23,000 years old.
But a rebuttal a year later questioned the findings, which were radiocarbon dated using ditch grass seeds, which grow in water. Water plants get carbon from underwater, which may be older than carbon in the atmosphere and can cause samples to appear older than they actually are.
Researchers used another technique to redate the site in 2023, which dated the time when quartz or feldspar grains in the tracks were last exposed to sunlight. They also used radiocarbon dating on conifer pollen found in the footprints.
Those results also found the footprints were between 21,000 and 23,000 years old.
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While some scientists accepted the results, others were still skeptical, saying the samples weren’t taken from the right layer.
Now this third study offers more evidence, after researchers used radiocarbon-dated mud cores, finding the footprints to be between 20,700 and 22,400 years old, which supports the original estimate.
Some scientists are still skeptical, suggesting underwater carbon issues could have also skewed sediment dates.
There are also major questions that remain unanswered, including a lack of artifacts or settlements belonging to the people who left the tracks. It’s possible that hunter-gatherers, who would have had few possessions but valued them, simply didn’t leave anything behind when walking through the landscape.
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