IT WAS out in the desert of New Mexico that humanity first tested the atomic bomb, creating an explosion that left an indelible imprint on our planet. In the same area, just a few dozen kilometres south, scientists are now finding imprints of quite a different sort: human footprints from the Stone Age. These tracks don’t have anything like the historical significance of the first nuclear test – and that is precisely why they are so important.
Archaeology often focuses on the big picture: technological shifts, epic migrations, the fall of civilisations. By contrast, the stones and bones we dig up rarely provide a clear sense of what everyday life was like for ordinary people, especially when it comes to the earliest humans, of whom there is precious little archaeological evidence anyway.
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The footprints being discovered in White Sands National Park, New Mexico, are the perfect counterpoint to this problem. Archaeologists had barely bothered to look for fossil footprints for decades, assuming them to be vanishingly rare. But as we report, this particular site is giving the lie to that.
The landscape at White Sands is strewn with ancient human tracks. What’s more, analysing details like the size and spacing of the footprints allows us to recreate snippets of people’s lives. The stories are incredible, from the thrill of hunting a giant ground sloth to the moments of joy as ancient children splash in muddy puddles. No other archaeological resource can give us these kinds of insights.
It is about time that we started more actively searching for ancient human prints in other places. It is likely that they can be found at many other sites around the world, and it will be fascinating to see what more can be unearthed.
There is, however, a danger here of pushing the evidence too far in pursuit of a good yarn. We can reconstruct the cut and thrust of an animal hunt, but we must be careful not to assume we know how the hunters actually felt. Get this right, though, and footprints are set to leave a lasting imprint on our understanding of our ancient human ancestors.
