When Vance Holiday accepted a research invitation for the New Mexico’s white sands in 2012, he did not know that he would become one of the most important archaeological sites in the US. While examining trenches at the US Army missile range, he stood just 100 yards away from the ancient human footprint buried under the gypsum tibba. When he came to know in 2019, these prints became the most undisputed evidence that humans flourished in North America during the previous glacial maximum – well before the clowice culture, the first known residents of the continent were considered.
A science in advance ReportA new radiocarbon analysis of ancient clay samples has re -confirmed that prints were made 21,000 to 23,000 years ago. The study conducted by Holiday and Doctorate student Jason Windingstad, Bolts suggested the controversial 2021 studies that the footprints are 10,000 years older than the evidence already accepted from the new Mexico’s clowice site. Previous dating was criticized through seeds and pollen, but with this third material – analyzed in a separate laboratory – there is another level of reliability.
Foot scars, preserved in sediment on ancient streams, which flow into lakes of ice age, are surprisingly preserved, although many of them are away from air erosion. Those who have made prints are considered hunters HumansMoving in a purposeful manner through the landscape, and who neither settled in any one place nor made any equipment that have survived till date. Holiday said that the absence of artifacts did not discredit the conclusions, as groups have probably be careful about leaving back valuable resources.
Windingstad, who has worked extensively in white sand, commented on the importance of looking at the tracks in the individual, admitting that they challenge the long -held stories about the early migration in the US. They insisted that new Radiocarbon The results are statistically more than 55 dates and three laboratories. “It goes against everything you trained,” he mentioned.
The results are so consistent that the evidence is difficult to reject, Holiday said. He said, “It will take a terrible seriousness for the accident to the extent that is here,” he said. The footprint of white sand is no longer an anomaly for those who study the people of America – they are a new foundation of understanding.