Ice Age Footprints Found in New Mexico

News October 9, 2020

(National Parks Service)
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White Sands Human Footprints Adult and Child
(National Parks Service)

ALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICO—KRQE reports that a trackway left behind by a small adult and a toddler-aged child more than 10,000 years ago has been found at White Sands National Park, which is located in New Mexico’s northern Chihuahuan Desert. The footprints continue for almost a mile along what was the shore of ancient Lake Otero. Sometimes the child walked on its own, and sometimes it was carried by the adult, whose footprints changed in depth and shape as he or she shifted the child from one hip to the other as they traveled. Prints of mammoth, giant ground sloth, dire wolf, and American lions have also been found in the park. To read about the preserved footprints of a family in northern Italy some 14,000 years ago, go to "Upper Paleolithic Cave Life."

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