Evidence of humans in North America during Last Ice Age
Despite a plethora of archaeological research over the past century, the timing of human migration into the Americas is still far from resolved.
In a study of exposed outcrops of Lake Otero in White Sands National Park in New Mexico, Bennett et al. reveal numerous human footprints dating to about 23,000 to 21,000 years ago.
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.
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.
Archaeologists and researchers in allied fields have long sought to understand human colonization of North America.
Questions remain about when and how people migrated, where they originated, and how their arrival affected the established fauna and landscape.
Here, we present evidence from excavated surfaces in White Sands National Park in New Mexico, where multiple in situ human footprints are stratigraphically constrained and bracketed by seed layers that yield calibrated radiocarbon ages between ~23 and 21 thousand years ago.
These findings confirm the presence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum, adding evidence to the antiquity of human colonization of the Americas and providing a temporal range extension for the coexistence of early inhabitants and Pleistocene megafauna.
The rest of the article is behind a paywall, read it here: science.org
Header image: Las Cruces Sun
Editor’s note: There has been much discussion about pre-Clovis human habitation of the Americas, but archaeology conducted in the last 30 years is producing mounting evidence of human presence well before the Clovis period. Sites such as Cactus Hill in Virginia, the Topper site in South Carolina, Buttermilk Creek in Texas, and Pedra Furada in Brazil, have produced radiocarbon dates of between 40 – 60,000 years ago.
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Joseph Olson
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Clovis flint arrowheads, found in archeological layers dated over 20,000 YBP, show European origin. During the pre Halocene era, ocean levels were 400 ft lower and ice bridges connected Europe, Greenland and Nova Scotia, just like the Bering ice bridge. Native Americans speak of the ancient ones that they fought and conquered. Europeans later recaptured this continent.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Joseph and PSI Readers,
Joseph, did you note the fact that this article clearly does not state how the date of the foot prints were determined. “In a study of exposed outcrops of Lake Otero in White Sands National Park in New Mexico, Bennett et al. reveal numerous human footprints dating to about 23,000 to 21,000 years ago.”
I have trouble accepting the methods used to determine the age of such evidence as this. I accept the proposed age of Stonehenge which is clearly the result of human activity. But not much else. And you have just reviewed the problems of carbon-14 dating!!!
Have a good day, Jerry
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Andy
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Hi Jerry, the article does clearly state the footprints were dated from the seeds in the layers directly above and below them.
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Joseph Olson
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The newly formed Nitrogen-14 to Carbon-14 atoms rapidly combine with diatomic Oxygen giving C-14 Carbon Dioxide, which combines with water vapor to produce mild Carbonic acid rainfall, or is absorbed in plants by photosynthesis, or absorbed into the ocean. This Earth is too beautiful to surrender it to satan.
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Jerry Krause
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Hi Andy,
Thank you for correcting my oversight. However, I do not read “were dated from the seeds in the layers directly above and below them.” I read: “human footprints are stratigraphically constrained and bracketed by seed layers that yield calibrated radiocarbon ages between ~23 and 21 thousand years ago.”
However, now will you please explain how there can be any seed layer above the footprints???
Have a good day, Jerry
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Andy
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The simple answer to that question is no, unless I could find a way of contacting the people to ask, but if you date the layers immediately above and below an object, the object is dated between the two.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Andy,
How about the fossilized human and dinosaur footprints in Texas? Was Fred Flintstone taking Dino for a walk?
Herb
Jerry Krause
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Hi Andy and PSI Readers,
I call your attention to the apparent fact that the predominant footprints pairs appear to be SUPERIMPOSABLE on each other instead of MIRROW IMAGES of each other!!!
Have a good day, Jerry
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Why
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I agree with Jerry. The dating of seeds above a layer of petrified dirt containing footprints does not in any way authoritatively prove the date of the footprints. And the peculiarity of the dual right and dual left prints seems off as well. With the extensive archaeological evidence showing nothing earlier than 15000 or so years ago of human activity, this seems too far off to begin championing in any rational way. I’ll remain skeptical until further evidence is corroborated for my ‘science denier’ mind to take without a block of salt. LOL!
SKEPTICISM IS SCIENCE, DAMMIT!
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