White Sands footprints reveal rapid ice age climate shifts
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Researchers excavating White Sands National Park in New Mexico determined the age of ancient human footprints and reconstructed the environment people experienced during the Last Glacial Maximum.
A team from the University of Arizona, the United States Geological Survey, and other institutions analyzed pollen and plant material to understand climate conditions between 23,500 and 21,700 years ago. They isolated up to 75,000 pollen grains per sample and used refined dating techniques to pinpoint the age of the footprints.
The study revealed that early humans at White Sands lived through dramatic environmental changes within a single lifetime. The landscape transformed from conifer forest to sagebrush steppe as Lake Otero, a large lake covering the park, shrank. Scientists measured isotopes in plant waxes and discovered significant swings in water availability, including severe drought during a warming event also recorded in Greenland’s ice cores.
Temperatures during the Last Glacial Maximum were around 50 degrees Fahrenheit, cooler than the current average of 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The research team hopes to investigate the mechanisms linking climate events in Greenland to drying conditions in the American Southwest. They emphasize the importance of connecting this paleoclimate data with archaeological evidence to understand the lives of the earliest Americans and acknowledge the connection between these ancient populations and contemporary Indigenous peoples.
