Human Footprints and the Peopling of the Americas

ABSTRACT

In the last two decades, human footprints have grown in importance in discussions about the peopling of the Americas. Study of such footprints needs to begin with rigorous documentation establishing that the sedimentary structures thought to be human footprints are bona fide human footprints. Determining the age of the human footprints follows but can be very difficult to achieve with the necessary precision. Nevertheless, this two-step process of identification and age determination is essential to using human footprints to understand the peopling of the Americas.

KEYWORDS:

• Human footprints
• peopling of the Americas
• identification
• age determination

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Spencer G. Lucas has been Curator of Geology and Paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History since 1988. A vertebrate paleontologist, one of his primary areas of research is on vertebrate footprints and other trace fossils found in nonmarine sedimentary rocks.