Existing quotes for the timing of these first occupants vary from ~ 13,000 years ago to more than 20,000 years earlier. In most cases, the timeline of human growth into North America is largely constrained by the viability of the presently acknowledged migration routes from Asia– an inland ice-free corridor through western Canada and/or a Pacific coastal route– which would have likely been closed or tough to pass through throughout the LGM.
Matthew Bennett and colleagues report the discovery of a series of in situ human footprints on surface areas dating to in between ~ 23,000 and 21,000 years ago and reveal almost 2,000 years of human occupation in North America during the height of the LGM. Unlike cultural artifacts or other proof of human activity, which can have unpredictable provenance, footprints have a primary depositional context, fixed on the imprinted surface, and represent a discrete minute in time.
According to Bennett et al., more analyses of the tracks suggest that most were made by children and teenagers; bigger adult footprints are much less frequent.
For more on this discovery, read Ancient Footprints Provide Evidence of Human Activity in the Americas Thousands of Years Earlier Than Thought.
Referral: “Evidence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum” by Matthew R. Bennett, David Bustos, Jeffrey S. Pigati, Kathleen B. Springer, Thomas M. Urban, Vance T. Holliday, Sally C. Reynolds, Marcin Budka, Jeffrey S. Honke, Adam M. Hudson, Brendan Fenerty, Clare Connelly, Patrick J. Martinez, Vincent L. Santucci and Daniel Odess, 24 September 2021, Science.DOI: 10.1126/ science.abg7586.
Footprints discovered at White Sands National Park in New Mexico, providing the earliest proof of human activity in the Americas. Credit: Cornell University
Newly discovered fossil human footprints embedded in an ancient lakebed program that humans populated North America throughout the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), inhabiting the area of what is now White Sands National Park in New Mexico, United States, in between 23 and 21 thousand years ago.
Not just do the findings offer conclusive proof on the early antiquity of the colonization of the New World, they also indicate that people existed in southern North America prior to the glacial advances of the LGM prevented human migration from Asia.
In spite of almost a century of research study, the information worrying the migration of the first humans into the Americas and their effect on the Pleistocene landscape remain poorly understood, and the earliest archaeological proof for the settlement of the region is typically extremely questionable.
