23,000-year-old human footprints rewrite American immigration history

Footprints dating back 23,000 years have been found in the southwestern United States. Reveals a study released Thursday, September 23rd, The migration of human beings to North America has already begun long before the end of the last ice age, and this migration is considered to have been allowed. These footprints were now left in the mud on the shores of a dry lake. This led to a white gypsum desert located in White Sand National Park, New Mexico.

Over time, the sediments were filled and hardened in the inlets and preserved until erosion, rediscovering this evidence of the past, much to the delight of scientists. “Many traces appear to be of adolescents and children; large footprints are rarely seen.”, Write the authors of the study published in the American Journal Science. Traces of prehistoric animals, mammoths and wolves have also been identified. Some, like the giant lazy ones, are contemporaries and close to human footprints on the shores of the lake.

Beyond emotion and events, this discovery is crucial to the intense debate about the origin of arrivalHomo sapiens In the United States, it is the last continent inhabited by our species. Because of the dating traces of white sand “Indicates the existence of humans on Earth about 23,000 years ago, with evidence of occupation for approximately two thousand years”, Emphasizes the study.

The theory of the Bering Strait was challenged

For decades, the generally accepted thesis was an emigration from eastern Siberia, at which time our ancestors had to land a land bridge – the current Bering Strait – in Alaska, and then spread further south. Archaeological evidence, including spearheads used to kill mummies, has long referred to the 13,500-year-old settlement known as the Clovis culture — named after a city in New Mexico — believed to be the earliest culture. Came from the Amerindians.

This pattern of “ancient Clovis culture” has been questioned for twenty years, and new discoveries have pushed back the age of the first population. But in general, after the expiration of this date, it does not go beyond 16,000 years “Last Glacier Max”. This glacial chapter is very important because it is generally accepted that ice caps were covered in the northern part of the continent or that no human migration from Asia via the Bering Strait was possible. Recent findings suggest a Pacific coast.