6 ms·

Geochronology supports LGM age for human tracks at White Sands, New Mexico

50 points by gametorch 1y ago

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/06/study-confirms-white-sands-footprints-are-23000-years-old/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/06/study-confirms-white...

gametorch 1y ago
If this is true, when do you think humans first arrived in North America? From my reading of the article, the dating of these footprints (~20k years ago) precludes the idea that humans arrived at that time. They must have arrived much earlier, because the northern part of the content was impassable due to glaciers. ...Unless they travelled down the Pacific coast of North America and then moved east.
- Ccecil 1y ago
  Columbia river would be my guess. Explains the Cooper's ferry evidence in Idaho [1]. I hear there is oral tradition from the coastal and Oregon tribes about the glacial "Missoula floods" which took place repeatedly between 10k-20k years ago. [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/artifacts-in-idaho-may-be-earliest-evidence-of-humans-in-north-america-study-says/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/artifacts-in-idaho...
  - gametorch 1y ago
    > I hear there is oral tradition from the coastal and Oregon tribes about the glacial "Missoula floods" which took place repeatedly between 10k-20k years ago. Very cool. You can still see the ripples from the proglacial lake in Missoula today. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_Lake_Missoula#/media/File:Orillas_f%C3%B3siles_del_lago_Missoula.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_Lake_Missoula#/media/F...
    - Ccecil 1y ago
      I live in Coeur d'alene, ID...which sits in the Purcell trench. The floods started just north of here at Clark Fork, ID. There is massive evidence of them everywhere you look. One spot, Chilco mountain, if you look towards the trench it is all flat and if you look the other way it is all mountain/river valleys. This wall separated the floods from the non flooded area. Lots of exposed rimrock here too. Also the reason we have such a good aquifer here (Rathdrum aquifer) which supplys Spokane/Coeur d'alene. edit: https://iafi.org/ice-age-floods-videos/ https://iafi.org/ice-age-floods-videos/
      - hungmung 1y ago
        These floods are likely responsible for bringing the 6th largest iron-nickel meteorite ever discovered (on Earth) from the Canada/Montana area to Western Oregon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willamette_Meteorite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willamette_Meteorite
        gametorch 1y ago
        Wow, that is a beautiful specimen. It's just massive.
      - jjulius 1y ago
        >edit: https://iafi.org/ice-age-floods-videos/ https://iafi.org/ice-age-floods-videos/ I have nothing to add, but want to acknowledge that Nick Zentner is a goddamned national treasure.
- ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
  I don't have the references, but I know that there have been some discoveries in Latin America and Western South America, that have been very old. Probably not "solid" enough for many scientists, though.
octaane 1y ago
I'm glad this has finally been put to rest. Per the Ars article: "...that makes for a grand total of 55 radiocarbon results in support of the earlier dates across the three studies." The evidence of much earlier human habitation in the Americas has been around for decades, yet has always been shoved aside in favor of a hypothesis with all ends tidied up and bound with a neat bow. Humans traveling over ice sheets from eurasia to the americas never made a huge amount of sense when they could skirt it's resource-rich edges - and traveling by water is much faster, and much less calorically intensive than traveling by land. You also have your food readily available.
- Tuna-Fish 1y ago
  > Humans traveling over ice sheets from eurasia to the americas never made a huge amount of sense when they could skirt it's resource-rich edges - and traveling by water is much faster, and much less calorically intensive than traveling by land. You also have your food readily available. ... No-one is suggesting people traveling over ice sheets? In fact, the primary reason for the conventional chronology is that it avoids any ice sheets. During the last glacial maximum, the sea level was low enough that the entirety of Beringia was above sealevel. It was also not covered by ice, and it was one of the richest places for hunter-gatherers to live north of the tropics. Think less of a land bridge and more of a continent. This allowed access to western and central Alaska, but the way forwards was blocked by the Laurentide ice sheet, both on the continent and extending significantly over the ocean. For someone to cross from Alaska to the southern part of the continent, they would have to sail over 2000km without access to anything but deep ocean and floating ice.
  - ab5tract 1y ago
    I think the point still stands that there has been a desperate clinging to a chronology that denies plenty of evidence and essentially all oral tradition of the people in question.
    - AlotOfReading 1y ago
      Which oral histories allow us to differentiate between the various hypotheses for the initial peopling of the Americas? I'm not aware of any and it's very difficult to identify direct relationships between modern groups and the earliest groups. Moreover, operationalizing oral histories and tying them to cultural memories of specific historical events is difficult at best, since that's not really how ancient oral histories get preserved.
WalterGR 1y ago
Here’s University of Arizona’s announcement / article: https://news.arizona.edu/news/earliest-evidence-humans-americas-confirmed-new-u-study https://news.arizona.edu/news/earliest-evidence-humans-ameri...
- ChrisArchitect 1y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44313137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44313137
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50 points by gametorch 1y ago

https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/06/study-confirms-white-sands-footprints-are-23000-years-old/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/06/study-confirms-white...

gametorch 1y ago

If this is true, when do you think humans first arrived in North America? From my reading of the article, the dating of these footprints (~20k years ago) precludes the idea that humans arrived at that time. They must have arrived much earlier, because the northern part of the content was impassable due to glaciers. ...Unless they travelled down the Pacific coast of North America and then moved east.

Ccecil 1y ago
Columbia river would be my guess. Explains the Cooper's ferry evidence in Idaho [1]. I hear there is oral tradition from the coastal and Oregon tribes about the glacial "Missoula floods" which took place repeatedly between 10k-20k years ago. [1] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/artifacts-in-idaho-may-be-earliest-evidence-of-humans-in-north-america-study-says/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/artifacts-in-idaho...
- gametorch 1y ago
  > I hear there is oral tradition from the coastal and Oregon tribes about the glacial "Missoula floods" which took place repeatedly between 10k-20k years ago. Very cool. You can still see the ripples from the proglacial lake in Missoula today. [1] 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_Lake_Missoula#/media/File:Orillas_f%C3%B3siles_del_lago_Missoula.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_Lake_Missoula#/media/F...
  - Ccecil 1y ago
    I live in Coeur d'alene, ID...which sits in the Purcell trench. The floods started just north of here at Clark Fork, ID. There is massive evidence of them everywhere you look. One spot, Chilco mountain, if you look towards the trench it is all flat and if you look the other way it is all mountain/river valleys. This wall separated the floods from the non flooded area. Lots of exposed rimrock here too. Also the reason we have such a good aquifer here (Rathdrum aquifer) which supplys Spokane/Coeur d'alene. edit: https://iafi.org/ice-age-floods-videos/ https://iafi.org/ice-age-floods-videos/
    - hungmung 1y ago
      These floods are likely responsible for bringing the 6th largest iron-nickel meteorite ever discovered (on Earth) from the Canada/Montana area to Western Oregon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willamette_Meteorite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willamette_Meteorite
      - gametorch 1y ago
        Wow, that is a beautiful specimen. It's just massive.
    - jjulius 1y ago
      >edit: https://iafi.org/ice-age-floods-videos/ https://iafi.org/ice-age-floods-videos/ I have nothing to add, but want to acknowledge that Nick Zentner is a goddamned national treasure.
ChrisMarshallNY 1y ago
I don't have the references, but I know that there have been some discoveries in Latin America and Western South America, that have been very old. Probably not "solid" enough for many scientists, though.

octaane 1y ago

I'm glad this has finally been put to rest. Per the Ars article: "...that makes for a grand total of 55 radiocarbon results in support of the earlier dates across the three studies." The evidence of much earlier human habitation in the Americas has been around for decades, yet has always been shoved aside in favor of a hypothesis with all ends tidied up and bound with a neat bow. Humans traveling over ice sheets from eurasia to the americas never made a huge amount of sense when they could skirt it's resource-rich edges - and traveling by water is much faster, and much less calorically intensive than traveling by land. You also have your food readily available.

Tuna-Fish 1y ago
> Humans traveling over ice sheets from eurasia to the americas never made a huge amount of sense when they could skirt it's resource-rich edges - and traveling by water is much faster, and much less calorically intensive than traveling by land. You also have your food readily available. ... No-one is suggesting people traveling over ice sheets? In fact, the primary reason for the conventional chronology is that it avoids any ice sheets. During the last glacial maximum, the sea level was low enough that the entirety of Beringia was above sealevel. It was also not covered by ice, and it was one of the richest places for hunter-gatherers to live north of the tropics. Think less of a land bridge and more of a continent. This allowed access to western and central Alaska, but the way forwards was blocked by the Laurentide ice sheet, both on the continent and extending significantly over the ocean. For someone to cross from Alaska to the southern part of the continent, they would have to sail over 2000km without access to anything but deep ocean and floating ice.
- ab5tract 1y ago
  I think the point still stands that there has been a desperate clinging to a chronology that denies plenty of evidence and essentially all oral tradition of the people in question.
  - AlotOfReading 1y ago
    Which oral histories allow us to differentiate between the various hypotheses for the initial peopling of the Americas? I'm not aware of any and it's very difficult to identify direct relationships between modern groups and the earliest groups. Moreover, operationalizing oral histories and tying them to cultural memories of specific historical events is difficult at best, since that's not really how ancient oral histories get preserved.

WalterGR 1y ago

Here’s University of Arizona’s announcement / article: https://news.arizona.edu/news/earliest-evidence-humans-americas-confirmed-new-u-study https://news.arizona.edu/news/earliest-evidence-humans-ameri...

ChrisArchitect 1y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44313137 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44313137

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