Stepping Towards a Paradigm Shift: The White Sands Footprints

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Prehistoric footprints indicate presence, behaviour, and the interactions between different animal species. The discovery of footprints at White Sands National Park in New Mexico has shown how tracks can transform our understanding of American prehistory and crucially the history of its first indigenous inhabitants. In September 2021 we announced footprints on a former lakebed (playa) dated by seed layers to the Last Glacial Maximum some 21,000 to 23,000 years ago, which have been confirmed via other dating methods. This presentation discusses the implications of the evidence of the footprints at White Sand, reveal what they can say about the peopling of the Americas more generally, and show how American archaeology is on the cusp of a paradigm shift in which footprints traces will transform our knowledge of the first Americans over the coming decade.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39907.0