Human footprints (shown) in modern-day New Mexico may be more than 20,000 years old. If so, that would offer some of the best evidence yet that people arrived in North America by the peak of the last ice age.
DAVID BUSTOS/NATIONAL PARK SERVICE, BOURNEMOUTH UNIV.
Early man in America takes a step backward — Science News , January 27, 1973
“Early Americans lived among and hunted mammoth, camel, extinct horse and bison as far back as 15,000 years. Now there is mounting evidence for a second breakthrough that will push the history of man in America back to 30,000 years — and possibly further.”
The question of when humans first set foot in the Americas is still hotly debated. Recent fossil and archaeological evidence suggests the first inhabitants arrived tens of thousands of years ago. For instance, humanlike footprints in New Mexico date to about 20,000 years ago ( SN: 11/6/21, p. 12 ). And stone tools found in a cave hint that humans resided in Mexico roughly 30,000 years ago ( SN: 7/3/21 & 7/17/21, p. 16 ). Some archaeologists argue that stones caked with mastodon bone residue that were found in California were tools used by humans or their close relatives around 130,000 years ago, although that claim remains controversial ( SN Online: 12/4/20 ). Pinning down the timeline of human settlement could reveal how people spread across North and South America.
A version of this article appears in the January 28, 2023 issue of Science News.
Science News Staff. Early man in America takes a step back . Science News . Vol. 103, January 27, 1973, p. 55.
Previously the staff writer for physical sciences at Science News , Maria Temming is the assistant editor at Science News Explores . She has bachelor’s degrees in physics and English, and a master’s in science writing.
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