A foreign team of researchers has discovered a long prehistoric human trail in White Sands National Park in New Mexico, USA. But it’s not the first time
Human lines in White Sands National Park record more than 1. 5 km (0. 93 miles) of a trip.
They show the fingerprints of a teenager who joins, at one point, through the fingerprints of a young child.
“A teenage woman or a small adult woman has made two separate trips of at least several hours, taking a young child in at least one direction,” dr. Sally Reynold of Bournemouth University and her colleagues.
The team discovered the lines on the bed of a dry lake, which has a variety of other footprints dating back 11,550 to 13,000 years ago.
The once muddy surface of the lake has left footprints for thousands of years as it dries.
“When I first saw the intermittent fingerprints of young children, a scene first came to mind,” said Dr. Thomas Urban, a researcher at Cornell University.
“This study is vital so that we can perceive our human ancestors, how they lived, their similarities, and their differences,” Dr. Reynold said.
“We can put ourselves in that person’s position or footprints and believe what it was like to take a child from one arm to another as we walk through tricky terrain surrounded by potentially harmful animals.
In the past, scientists have discovered tracks of mammoths, giant sloths, saber-toothed cats, and hideous wolves at the site.
“The giant sloths and Colombian mammoths crossed the human lines after their creation, appearing that this land is home to both humans and giant animals, making the adventure of this individual and this child dangerous,” I was told.
Team article published in Quaternary Science Reviews.
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Matthew R. Bennett et al. 2020. Walking in the Mud: Human Lines of the Pleistocene of White Sands National Park, New Mexico. Quaternary Science Reviews 249: 106610; doi: 10. 1016 / j. quascirev. 2020. 106610