Page 9 - HISTORY ANGKOR

SPLASHING IN A LAKE, THESE YOUNG
PEOPLE MAY HAVE LIVED ALONGSIDE
MEGAFAUNA SOME 21,000 TO 23,000
YEARS AGO IN WHAT IS TODAY’S WHITE
SANDS NATIONAL PARK, NEW MEXICO.
ILLUSTRATION: KAREN CARR

LAND OF THE LOST

IF FURTHER STUDIES help confirm the White Sands footprints were a paleontologist at Bournemouth University, England, and study
made by people at the peak of the last ice age 21,000 to 23,000 years co-author, said humans arrived as a dominant predator. The lake
ago, it would mean that they lived alongside megafauna: mammoths, was part of a semiarid habitat, likely drawing animals and allowing
giant sloths (pictured above right), dire wolves, and saber-toothed cats. for ambush hunting. As the world warmed, however, the mega-
One set of footprints suggests the site may have been a hunting ground fauna died out. “The extinction of the megafauna may be due to
with human tracks seeming to stalk those of a giant sloth. Sally Reynolds, climate change and human hunting pressure,” she said.

aquatic plant (Ruppia cirrhosa) Last Glacial Maximum), then was needed to verify the ex- prints are being lost to soil

were preserved above and be- humans must have lived in the tent of the reservoir effect erosion,” said David Bustos,
low one set of the footprints. Americas before the Ice Age. “given the impact and im- co-author of the study. “Once
Scientists carbon-dated them portance” of the claims. If the they are gone they will never
to at least 5,000 years earlier Lingering Questions dating holds, it “will change be seen again.”
than existing evidence of hu- Not all scientists consider that archaeological perspectives —Braden Phillips
man settlement there. the dating of the seeds proves on when people arrived
A prevailing theory has the age of the footsteps. They in the Americas,” he
been that human migration point to a phenomenon called said. While the foot-
from Asia to the Americas the freshwater reservoir effect, prints do not settle the
was impossible until Ice Age in which the seeds could have debate, they boost the theory
glaciers had retreated, some- absorbed older carbon from that humans were in North
time between 13,000 and the lake water, making them America earlier than was
16,000 years ago. Evidence seem older than they are. The commonly thought, although
of older settlements has also study’s authors, however, say the exact time of their first ar-
been found in Chile and Texas, they accounted for the reser- rival remains undetermined.
which makes the footprints voir effect and found it to be Looking ahead, the team is
at White Sands the latest negligible. in a race against time. “The
find to weaken that hypoth- Loren Davis, an archaeolo-

esis. If the footprints in New gist at Oregon State Universi- ANCIENT SEEDS (RUPPIA CIRRHOSA)
FOUND AT THE SITE DATED THE FOOTPRINTS
Mexico were made 21,000 to ty (who did not take part in the
TO BETWEEN 21,000 AND 23,000 YEARS AGO.
23,000 years ago (during the study), said further research PHOTO: DAVID BUSTOS