New Delhi: Recent findings of a comprehensive analysis of fossilized human footprints are challenging the long-held belief that humans arrived. Of America The earliest stone tools were first found in Clovis, New Mexico, about 14,000 years ago, based primarily on the discovery of Clovis points, NPR reports.
These footprints are part of a collection found in White Sands National Park, an amazing natural landscape in southern New Mexico that is characterized by giant gypsum dunes in the Tularosa Basin. at the last moment ice ageThis basin contained a lake, and prints were preserved on its now dry shores.
In 2021, a research team of experts from the National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and others published a paper in the journal Science presenting a controversial estimate that these footprints date to a much earlier period, specifically between 21,000 and 23,000 Between years. First.
The discovery challenges the traditional timeline of human arrival in the Americas and has sparked significant debate among researchers.
“This era was actually much older than the accepted paradigm for when humans entered North America,” Kathleen Springer, one of the U.S. Geological Survey researchers who wrote the report, told NPR.
As NPR reports, he said scientists “had thought that humans might have crossed from Siberia to Alaska at the end of the last ice age.”
“But if his team’s analysis of the footprints was right, perhaps it was wrong, and humans found their way onto the continent even when its northern lands were still covered in ice. This opened up whole ways of migratory routes for people. How to reach here?” He added.
The overlapping tracks – and timelines – of humans and megafauna also opened up new questions about how long the species co-existed, and what role humans may or may not have played in their extinction.
Critics raised concerns about the research and suggested that the dating techniques used were flawed. Another paper published in Science argued that carbon dating of seeds of the aquatic plant Rupiah cirrhosa found along the footprints may be unreliable due to the plant’s ability to absorb old carbon from water, potentially leading to The results may be bad.
“I unfortunately do not share their findings that they have resolved the issue of when people Were making these footprints.” By NPR.
According to NPR, it argued that “the quartz samples came from the lowest deposits of the study area, and the possible age range is broad.” They also said that the sample was less useful because it was taken from a soil layer. , It is not so that there are no footprints marked on it”.
These footprints are part of a collection found in White Sands National Park, an amazing natural landscape in southern New Mexico that is characterized by giant gypsum dunes in the Tularosa Basin. at the last moment ice ageThis basin contained a lake, and prints were preserved on its now dry shores.
In 2021, a research team of experts from the National Park Service, the U.S. Geological Survey, and others published a paper in the journal Science presenting a controversial estimate that these footprints date to a much earlier period, specifically between 21,000 and 23,000 Between years. First.
The discovery challenges the traditional timeline of human arrival in the Americas and has sparked significant debate among researchers.
“This era was actually much older than the accepted paradigm for when humans entered North America,” Kathleen Springer, one of the U.S. Geological Survey researchers who wrote the report, told NPR.
As NPR reports, he said scientists “had thought that humans might have crossed from Siberia to Alaska at the end of the last ice age.”
“But if his team’s analysis of the footprints was right, perhaps it was wrong, and humans found their way onto the continent even when its northern lands were still covered in ice. This opened up whole ways of migratory routes for people. How to reach here?” He added.
The overlapping tracks – and timelines – of humans and megafauna also opened up new questions about how long the species co-existed, and what role humans may or may not have played in their extinction.
Critics raised concerns about the research and suggested that the dating techniques used were flawed. Another paper published in Science argued that carbon dating of seeds of the aquatic plant Rupiah cirrhosa found along the footprints may be unreliable due to the plant’s ability to absorb old carbon from water, potentially leading to The results may be bad.
“I unfortunately do not share their findings that they have resolved the issue of when people Were making these footprints.” By NPR.
According to NPR, it argued that “the quartz samples came from the lowest deposits of the study area, and the possible age range is broad.” They also said that the sample was less useful because it was taken from a soil layer. , It is not so that there are no footprints marked on it”.