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Steps back in time
Natural History, Oct, 2005 by Stephan Reebs
The announcement that some 160 human footprints have been discovered embedded in an ancient layer of volcanic ash near Puebla, Mexico, has stirred the continuing debate about how, and when, people first arrived in the Americas. In spite of disputed evidence and many challenges to the contrary, the consensus among paleoanthropologists is that the first people to set foot on the continent crossed from Siberia into Alaska by about 11,500 years ago. Clovis points, the spearheads that trace their culture, are scattered across North America.
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But the Mexican footprints have been dated to 40,000 years ago, raising new doubts about the "Clovis-first" theory. Silvia Gonzalez, of Liverpool John Moores University in England, and a team of British, Australian, and Mexican paleontologists are studying the find. Children probably made about a third of the human prints, they report. The investigators also discovered about a hundred animal footprints, mostly from dogs, big cats, and what may have been camels, cows, or deer.
The discovery is also noteworthy because fossilized footprints are so rare. In the present case, they probably formed when people walked along a lakeshore covered with soft ash after the nearby Cerro Toluquilla volcano erupted. When the lake flooded, the imprints were preserved under silt. Where the people came from, and whether they arrived by land or sea, remain open questions. (Quaternary Science Reviews, forthcoming)
COPYRIGHT 2005 Natural History Magazine, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning
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