Scientists have confirmed that the footprints at White Sands National Park really are 23,000 years old.
The prints, which made headline news back in 2021, were discovered in layers of soil at the White Sands national park in New Mexico.
The find was deemed particularly significant as, until recently, the available evidence had suggested that humans had first arrived in North America between 11,000 to 13,000 years ago.
At the time, scientists at the US Geological Survey had determined their age by conducting an analysis of tiny seeds that were embedded inside them.
While compelling, this method did not satisfy everyone and now, two years on, the same team is back with another study confirming once and for all that the footprints are as old as believed.
The new study, which offers corroborating findings using multiple dating techniques, dates the prints to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago at the time of the Last Glacial Maximum.
The discovery could serve to rewrite what we know about the history of modern humans in North America and might even push their arrival on the continent back further still.
“These finds indicate the presence of humans in North America for approximately two millennia during the Last Glacial Maximum south of the migratory barrier created by the ice sheets to the north,” the researchers wrote in the original study.
“This timing coincided with a Northern Hemispheric abrupt warming event, Dansgaard-Oeschger event 2, which drew down lake levels and allowed humans and megafauna to walk on newly exposed surfaces, creating tracks that became preserved in the geologic record.”
Source: Live Science
Charles R
The theory of migration over the Bering Sea ice bridge is probably around 4000 miles from this find. Did the original migrators just keep going south for warmer lands. Or did the migration south extend over several or many generations of the original travelers to reach the Alamogordo, NM area?
Ron S
It doesn’t matter to me either way, but my non-biased opinion tells me these tracks and additional ones found in the area don’t strike me overall as being human (as we know ourselves). I’ve looked at many photos of these fossilized “human” tracks before and the way the toes look splayed out, long and flat at the phalanges regions of the toe look more reptile or amphibian.
Some even look to have claws and sometimes they even appear to have 6 toes. There isn’t an apparent ball of the foot or area behind where the toes connect making a ridge, which reminds me of a scuba flipper.
Granted these are very old and weathering had an effect on them before they were preserved and then uncovered. The overall structure looks only generally like a human footprint shape, but doesn’t look actually like human. JMO
Ron S
I had a thought just now and wondered what the bones inside a seals flipper looked like. I came across this illustration between the foot bones of a seal, human and a bear which I thought was very interesting.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRIfEVL_yKOE33yCxizYpfohCn6UGUjy6IKpw&usqp=CAU
Maybe we could hypothetically assume that humans were once more aquatic mammal/reptile hybrids… It seems far fetched but would explain our balance between both our lizard brain and mammal brain. It could explain how water births are possible for us as well as our lack of hair (compared to most land mammals). Might explain of our other characteristics, myths and legends as well, such as mermaids 🧜♀️.
Maybe we are just created through evolution by the Creator with a balance where we are relatable to both the water dwellers and also the land creatures alike as caretakers.
Or maybe we are (as Hecklefish from Why Files says)… LIZAAAAD PEOPLE! 😳
A picture really is worth way more than (at the very least) a thousand words… but I’ll stop there:)
Hope everyone is having a great week, and I’m sending out prayers of light for everyone, also that events in the world get better… You can too.
🌞🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼