The footprints are the first undisputed evidence that humans were already found in the Americas during the so-called Last Glacial Maximum.

Researchers write that in the magazine science. At the center is a decent collection of footprints that were found in White Sands National Park, located on the southern border of the United States. Dating indicates that the oldest prints are about 23,000 years old. “This corresponds to the culmination of the last glacial, also called the Last Glacial Maximum, and makes them the oldest footprints known to us in the Americas,” said researcher Kathleen Springer.

Kids and Teens

Judging by their size, the footprints appear to have been left mainly by teenagers and young children. Only a few prints are attributed to adults. The people left the imprints as they foraged through the soft mud at the edge of a shallow lake. In addition to the 23,000-year-old footprints, footprints that are somewhat younger have also been discovered; together they testify that people were present here for a period of about 2000 years.

dire wolves and mammoths

And the people weren’t the only ones walking around there; imprints of mammoths, birds, large ground sloths and dire wolves have also been found in the same area. “It’s an important place, because all the traces we’ve found here testify to human interaction 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 people and animals coexisted here and dating the prints also gives us a better idea of ​​what the landscape looked like back then.”

Dating

But what makes the discovery of these footprints particularly interesting, of course, is that the oldest prints are no less than 23,000 years old. For years, scientists have been hotly debated about when the first humans arrived in America. It is generally believed that this was only after the melting of the North American ice sheets, or about 16,000 years ago. But the footprints prove that people have set foot in America before. “White Sands provides us with the first unequivocal evidence for the presence of humans in the Americas during the Last Glacial Maximum,” said study researcher Dan Odess.

Important for previous finds

In recent years, there have been tentative indications that humans already roamed the Americas more than 16,000 years ago. But those clues weren’t very convincing in and of themselves. “One reason this discovery (of the footprints, ed.) is so important is that it makes more plausible the idea that other very ancient sites really do indicate the presence of humans – even if the evidence those sites contain is less convincing. . It does not mean that all those sites are real (and were therefore left behind by humans more than 16,000 years ago, ed.), but it means that we cannot immediately rule that out.”

Finally, the prints also give us a unique insight into the lives of these early ‘Americans’. “The footprints left in White Sands provide a picture of what happened here,” said study researcher Matthew Bennett. “Teenagers interacting with young children and adults. We can see our ancestors as very functional people who were engaged in hunting and survival, but what we see here is that they also played and that people of different ages came together.”