(ORDO NEWS) — Archaeologists have found 88 footprints belonging to ancient people who lived in the territory of modern USA about 12 thousand years ago. They lived there at the end of the ice age.
An interesting point is that the prints of not only adults, but also children aged 5-12 years were found.
Due to the fact that the sand is saturated with moisture, traces appear and then disappear when the moisture becomes a little less. In this regard, the traces were called “ghostly”.
Employees of Cornell University, located in the USA, found traces in the desert of the Great Salt Lake. Ancient people left them almost 12 thousand years ago.
Near the place with traces were two pits for building fires. Scientists have also discovered traces of the fact that people started using tobacco already in ancient times.
Experts emphasized that 12,000 years ago, these areas were covered with swamps, and now they have turned into a desert.
It should be noted that the state of Utah, which is now considered the driest, was a swampy area even after the end of the ice age.
Due to the fact that there is much more moisture in the sand than in all other deposits, traces appear on its surface. When there is not enough moisture, the marks disappear immediately.
“It was immediately clear that the tracks are very old, because we had previously found the same ones in White Sand National Park in the state of New Mexico.
It is interesting that the age of the previously found traces was 23 thousand years. In America, these are the oldest traces of people,” says Thomas Urban from Cornell University.
Experts believe that if it was possible to find two different places with footprints of ancient people on the territory of America, then in fact there may be many more of them.
For a long time, it was believed that Homo sapiens arrived in North America approximately 13-16 thousand years ago.
It was at this time that huge ice shields began to melt. Those traces that were found in the state of New Mexico indicate that people appeared on the mainland much earlier.
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