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ABSTRACT
Bennett et al. (2021, Science 373, 1528–1531) reported that ancient human footprints discovered in White Sands National Park, New Mexico date to between ∼23,000 and 21,000 years ago. Haynes (2022, PaleoAmerica, this issue) proposes two alternate hypotheses to explain the antiquity of the footprints. One is that they were made by humans crossing over older sediments sometime during the Holocene. This is incorrect as there are Pleistocene megafauna tracks interspersed with the human footprints, so they cannot be Holocene in age. The other hypothesis maintains seeds used to date the human footprints were exhumed from older sediments, transported across the Tularosa Basin, and deposited on moist ground that was traversed by Clovis people at ∼13,000 years ago. This scenario requires a series of events that are highly unlikely, if not impossible. We maintain the seeds were collected from their original depositional context and the ages of the footprints fall within the Last Glacial Maximum.
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Notes on contributors
Jeffrey S. Pigati
Jeff Pigati is a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado. His research is focused on understanding the response of hydrologic systems in arid environments to past episodes of abrupt climate change. He is also an expert in radiocarbon dating and a longtime friend of Vance Haynes.
Kathleen B. Springer
Kathleen Springer is a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, Colorado. She specializes in deciphering complex stratigraphic sequences and reconstructing paleoenvironmental conditions, and studies how springs and other hydrologic systems responded to climate change in the recent geologic past.
Vance T. Holliday
Vance Holliday is on the faculty in both Anthropology and Geosciences at the University of Arizona, and is Executive Director of the Argonaut Archaeological Research Fund, devoted to exploring the early peopling of the greater Southwest. His interests include Paleoindian archaeology and geoarchaeology as well as Quaternary soils and paleoenvironments, and Paleolithic geoarchaeology of eastern Europe.
Matthew R. Bennett
Matthew Bennett is a Professor of Environmental and Geographical Science at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom. He works on a range of Quaternary projects and is a specialist in vertebrate ichnology.
David Bustos
David Bustos is a graduate of New Mexico State University and is currently the Resource Program Manager at White Sands National Park. He is responsible for the management of the park’s cultural and natural resources, including the world's largest gypsum dune field, and has investigated ancient human and megafauna footprints throughout the park for more than a decade.
Thomas M. Urban
Thomas Urban is a research scientist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. His research is focused on applications of near-surface geophysics, particularly in relation to archaeological and paleontological questions. He has worked on more than 500 site investigations worldwide.
Sally C. Reynolds
Sally Reynolds is a Principal Academic in Paleontology and Human Evolution at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom. She works on a range of paleoecological projects in Africa, Europe, and North America.
Daniel Odess
Dan Odess is chief of the Science and Research program of the National Park Service’s Cultural Resources directorate in Washington, DC. He has conducted archaeological investigations in the North American and Russian Arctic with interest in human adaptation and response to environmental change.