Oldest footprints in North America radically push back human arrival

“I don’t agree that it resolved the issue of the timing, but they have made progress,” said Loren Davis, an anthropologist at Oregon State University. “Knowing the age of this is important, because if these researchers are correct and people are truly in New Mexico at 23,000 years ago, or even 21,000 years ago, it means we have to change our fundamental understanding of some things.” The thousands of footprints found in White Sands are an extraordinary but evanescent record of life around Lake Otero, the body of water that...