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<< Other Photo Pages >> Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park - Ancient Trackway in United States in New Mexico

Submitted by AKFisher on Thursday, 19 June 2025  Page Views: 3799

Mesolithic, Palaeolithic and EarlierSite Name: Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park Alternative Name: Lake Otero Footprints, Tularosa Basin Footprints
Country: United States State: New Mexico Type: Ancient Trackway
Nearest Town: Alamogordo, NM
Latitude: 32.801640N  Longitude: 106.32496W
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
 3 Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
 3 Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
 1 Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
 5

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External Links:

Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park
Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park submitted by AKFisher : Site depiction showing fossilized human footprints. NPS photo. (Vote or comment on this photo)
For 80 years, only a small collection of fossilized footprints were known to exist at White Sands. However, in 2006, a group of scientists noticed dark spots dotting the expanse of the lakebed that appeared to be footprints. Their curiosities lead them to dig up these dark spots in 2009. This led to the discovery of both Harlan’s ground sloth and human footprints.

During the 2010s, footprints of a dire wolf were discovered. Some of the human footprints were located next to ancient seeds. Scientists dated these seeds to more than 18,000 years ago, although debate continues as to the actual age and accuracy of the dating, see the comments below.

In 2018, researchers discovered what they believe to be footprints of a female. They tell a story that may seem familiar today; her footprints show her walking for almost a mile, with a toddler’s footprints occasionally showing up beside hers. Evidence suggests that she carried the child, shifting them from side to side and occasionally setting the child down as they walked. The footprints broadened and slipped in the mud as a result of the additional weight she was carrying.

Footprints across White Sands have been found coexisting and interacting with extinct ice age animals. One set of footprints shows what appears to be humans stalking a giant sloth. This is demonstrated by human footprints being found inside the footprints of the sloth as they were tracked. Unfortunately for our hunter, there is no evidence that this was a fruitful hunt.

Although the reason for the disappearance of the great animals of the ice age is still debated among scientists. The ice age ended because of changes in the earth’s climate. Environments once rich in lush green life began to disappear. The fossilized footprints of White Sands are probably the most important resources in the Americas to understand the interaction of humans and extinct animals from the ice age.

These fossilized footprints, among other natural and cultural features found in the dunefield, further propelled the movement to re-designate White Sands National Monument into White Sands National Park. As a massive landscape filled with history, White Sands continually proves to be more than just a sandbox.[1]

Reference:
1. National Park Service ~ White Sands National Park website, "Fossilized Footprints" (see below link)

Further reading and information:
NPS
United States Geological Survey

Directions: From Alamogordo, NM via US-70 W, 16.2 mi. (approximate location ~ visit Park Headquarters for specific directions).

Note: New dating confirms White Sands footprints in New Mexico are 23,000 years old - pushing the date of human arrival in the Americas earlier, more on our page.
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Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park
Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park submitted by Dodomad : USGS scientists & partners have confirmed, with 2 new lines of evidence, that human footprints found in White Sands Nat'l Park show that people lived in North America 21-23,000 yrs ago - much earlier than previously thought! (Vote or comment on this photo)

Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park
Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park submitted by Dodomad (Vote or comment on this photo)

Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park
Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park submitted by AKFisher : A trench dug into the brown gypsum soil on a lake playa in White Sands National Park reveals more human footprints below the surface. NPS Photo. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park
Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park submitted by AKFisher : Long before the sand dunes formed at White Sands National Park, teenagers left their footprints in the mud, only to be discovered thousands of years later to reveal what daily life may have been like during the ice age. NPS photo. (Vote or comment on this photo)

Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park
Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park submitted by AKFisher : Fossilized footprints ~ White Sands National Park. Photo credit: NPS.

Do not use the above information on other web sites or publications without permission of the contributor.
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"Fossilized Footprints - White Sands National Park" | Login/Create an Account | 3 News and Comments
  
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New dating confirms White Sands footprints in New Mexico are 23,000 years old by Andy B on Thursday, 19 June 2025
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New dating confirms White Sands footprints in New Mexico are 23,000 years old—pushing back human arrival in the Americas. No tools. Just tracks. But the evidence is hard to ignore. Human Presence in White Sands Before Clovis

In the gypsum dunes of southern New Mexico, in a place once soaked by an ancient lake, a trail of footprints has prompted a deep rethinking of when—and how—humans first arrived in the Americas. Those impressions, discovered in the now-dry sediments of White Sands National Park, are not merely the ephemeral traces of an afternoon walk but may represent the oldest direct evidence of human presence in North America.

A new study, published in Science Advances by Vance Holliday and colleagues, adds weight to an increasingly robust claim: that people were in what is now the American Southwest between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago, deep within the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This period marked the peak of the last Ice Age, when colossal ice sheets blanketed much of the northern continent. The findings challenge decades of consensus shaped by the Clovis-first model, which held that humans only entered the Americas around 13,000 years ago via an interior ice-free corridor.

"You get to the point where it's really hard to explain all this away," said Holliday, a geologist and archaeologist at the University of Arizona. "It would be serendipity in the extreme to have all these dates giving you a consistent picture that's in error."

More at
www.anthropology.net/p/human-presence-in-white-sands-before

.....and the research article is open access here:
Paleolake geochronology supports Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) age for human tracks at White Sands, New Mexico
doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adv4951
[ Reply to This ]

New independent dating confirms antiquity of ancient human footprints at White Sands by Andy B on Saturday, 07 October 2023
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New radiocarbon (14C) and optically simulated luminescence ages have confirmed the controversial antiquity of the ancient human footprints discovered in White Sands National Park, and reported in a study in 2021. Addressing the widespread criticism of their previous study, researchers report that the independent ages from multiple resolved sources have conclusively shown that the footprints were left behind between roughly 23,000 and 20,000 years ago, demonstrating that humans were present in southern North America during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM).

When and how humans first migrated into North America has long been debated and remains poorly understood. Current estimates for the timing of these first occupants range from ~13,000 years ago to more than 20,000 years ago. However, the earliest archaeological evidence for the region’s settlement is sparse and often controversial. In a Science study published in September 2021 (Bennett et al.), researchers reported the discovery of in situ human footprints preserved in an ancient lakebed dating to between ~23,000 and 21,000 years ago in what is now White Sands National Park – findings which suggest nearly 2,000 years of human occupation in North America during the height of the LGM. However, since the study’s publication, the accuracy of the radiocarbon dates has been debated. It’s argued that the ancient seeds from the aquatic plant (Ruppia cirrhosa) that were used to date the surfaces the footprints were embedded in have the potential to be affected by old carbon reservoir effects that could influence the reported radiocarbon ages and make them appear older than they truly are.

Here, Jeffery Pigati, Kathleen Springer, and colleagues report new evidence in the form of multiple independent age estimates of the White Sands footprints, which support their previous study’s claims. “We always knew that we would have to independently evaluate the accuracy of our ages to convince the archaeological community that the peopling of the Americas occurred far earlier than traditionally thought,” said Pigati.

More at
popular-archaeology.com/article/new-independent-ages-confirm-antiquity-of-ancient-human-footprints-at-white-sands/

See also
www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-footprints-affirm-people-lived-in-the-americas-more-than-20-000-years-ago/

www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/study-confirms-age-oldest-fossil-human-footprints-north-america
[ Reply to This ]

Debate continues over age of ancient footprints by Andy B on Friday, 15 September 2023
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When and how ancient humans reached the Americas remains one of the most contentious topics in prehistory.

Last year, the journal Science published a study of preserved footprints in New Mexico’s White Sands area that pushed the date back to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago.

Findings in the journal Quaternary Research are challenging that assessment.

Based on carbon dating of aquatic plant seeds found in cross-sections contemporaneous with the White Sands footprints, the Science paper argued for the former.

But the new analysis suggests those calculations failed to fully compensate for a key fact: The submerged plants would have taken carbon from the surrounding water.

Radiocarbon dating takes advantage of the fact that cosmic rays continually create a radioactive isotope of carbon in the Earth’s atmosphere. This “flavor,” called carbon-14, is absorbed by plants during photosynthesis. Once a plant (or an animal that ate it) dies, this atmospheric exchange stops, and the carbon-14 in the remains undergoes radioactive decay.

Scientists know the ratio of carbon-14 in the atmosphere during a given period. By comparing that amount to the undecayed quantity in a fossilized plant or animal, they can approximate the sample’s age.

But the seeds used in the Science study came from a plant called Ruppia cirrhosa, also known as spiral ditchgrass or spiral tasselweed. Because it grows underwater, it would have drawn much of its carbon from surrounding water. That carbon, which originated from the eroded bedrock of the Tularosa Valley and the surrounding mountains, would have tested as older.

The authors of the new paper say the previous authors took this into account but underestimated its effect.

More: fronterasdesk.org/content/1826291/debate-continues-over-age-ancient-footprints
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