Footprints in White Sands Rewrite the History of Human Arrivals in the Americas

White Sands National Park in the US state of New Mexico changes established assumptions about human history with thousands of years of footprints hidden under the white sand dunes.

It was determined that the fossilized human footprints discovered in the park date back to approximately 21 thousand to 23 thousand years ago. The findings significantly push back long-held theories about when humans reached the Americas.

For many years, it was thought that humans reached present-day North America approximately 13,000 to 16,000 years ago via the Beringia Bridge, which connected Asia and America.

Traces at White Sands indicate that humans lived on the continent more than 21,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Maximum, when much of North America was covered by giant ice sheets.

Exactly how humans reached the continent is still debated. Some researchers focus on the "coastal migration" theory, which suggests that early communities moved along the Asian coast using small boats.

The discoveries at White Sands didn't just change the history of humans arriving on the continent. The footprints also revealed that prehistoric humans lived at the same time as giant creatures of the Ice Age, such as mammoths.

Park ranger and researcher David Bustos first noticed tracks resembling human footprints around dried-up Lake Otero in 2009. However, the idea that the tracks could date from the same period as the mammoth footprints did not initially convince scientists.

The turning point occurred in 2016. Researchers detected mammoth tracks directly above human footprints. Later, a human footprint was also found in the footprint left by a giant ground sloth.

The findings indicated that humans may have shared the same geography with these giant animals for thousands of years.

Some traces discovered in the park also offer extraordinary slices of the daily life of prehistoric people.

A series of footprints stretching for about 1.5 kilometers is thought to belong to an adult woman carrying a small child. It is understood from the traces that the woman left the child on the ground from time to time.

Other tracks show that children were playing in the water collected in the footprints of giant ground sloths. According to the researchers, these findings reveal how similar the family relationships and daily behaviors of people living thousands of years ago were to those of today.