Widespread Distribution of Fossil Footprints in the Tularosa Basin: Human Trace Fossils at White Sands National Monument

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Paleoindian Southwest" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

White Sands National Monument (WHSA) is well known for the world’s largest gypsum dunefield, but the geological elements that created this dunefield also persevered one of the largest (in area and number) assemblages of human foot prints in the world. Tracks are revealed under specific moisture conditions, linked to near-surface geophysics. Human and megafauna tracks have been found throughout the world, but most footprints sites are limited in spatial extent and thereby preclude paleo-tracking. What sets the prints within the boundary of White Sands National Monument (WHSA) apart is not only the sheer number of tracks with densities often >10 per square meter, but the spatial area over which they are distributed. At WHSA individual humans and animals can be tracked over kilometers and seen in many places interacting. These interactions are numerous and work to date has only begun to reveal some of these interactions. The fossil footprint data available on human - megafauna interactions provides a whole new class of information in early archaeology of the New World. This presents a tremendous opportunity to broaden our understanding for topics such as group size, hunting strategies / behavior, and group composition.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• The Paleoindian Southwest

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24730