Journal
PALEOAMERICA
Volume 8, Issue 2, Pages 99-101Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/20555563.2022.2039863
Keywords
Paleoichnology; megafauna; White Sands National Park; radiocarbon dating; Last Glacial Maximum
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
The ancient human footprints discovered in White Sands National Park, New Mexico have been dated to approximately 23,000 to 21,000 years ago. The authors of the study propose two hypotheses to explain the antiquity of the footprints, but through analysis of the footprints and their surrounding environment, they conclude that the footprints belong to the Last Glacial Maximum.
Bennett et al. (2021, Science 373, 1528-1531) reported that ancient human footprints discovered in White Sands National Park, New Mexico date to between similar to 23,000 and 21,000 years ago. Haynes (2022, PaleoAmerica, this issue) proposes two alternate hypotheses to explain the antiquity of the footprints. One is that they were made by humans crossing over older sediments sometime during the Holocene. This is incorrect as there are Pleistocene megafauna tracks interspersed with the human footprints, so they cannot be Holocene in age. The other hypothesis maintains seeds used to date the human footprints were exhumed from older sediments, transported across the Tularosa Basin, and deposited on moist ground that was traversed by Clovis people at similar to 13,000 years ago. This scenario requires a series of events that are highly unlikely, if not impossible. We maintain the seeds were collected from their original depositional context and the ages of the footprints fall within the Last Glacial Maximum.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available