Ancient Human Footprints Are Oldest Ever Found in North America

By Katherine Hignett On 3/29/18 at 8:49 AM EDT

3_29_Human Footprint — A photograph of one of the human footprint beside a digitally-enhanced image of the same print. Duncan McLaren

Tech & Science Archaeology Anthropology Ancient humans Canada

Demographers estimate that experts estimate that 110 billion people have lived on Earth at one time or another. If we all walk 10,000 steps a day and live to the grand old age of 65, that means we've collectively left twenty-four sextillion six hundred and forty quintillion footprints on this planet—roughly. Most of these vanish into nothing, but some, it turns out, can capture how our ancient ancestors moved around the globe Researchers think they have found the earliest known human footprints in North America. Some 13,000 years ago, two adults and a child took a barefoot stroll across the shoreline of what is now Calvert Island, BC, Canada. Their footprints, researchers think, are evidence that humans once crossed from Asia to North America along a land bridge that is now the pacific coast of Canada. "It is possible that the coast was one of the means by which people entered the Americas at that time," study author and anthropologist at the Hakai Institute and University of Victoria in British Columbia, told the New York Times. Researchers found 29 ancient footprints preserved in beach sediments—clay, sand, gravel and more clay—on the shores of the island, which lies off the coast of British Columbia. Carbon-dating revealed the footprints were really, really old. At the end of the last ice age—when these footprints were likely made—the sea level on the shores of Calvert Island was up to ten feet lower than it is today. "As this island would only have been accessible by watercraft 13,000 years ago," McLaren said, "it implies that the people who left the footprints were seafarers who used boats to get around, gather and hunt for food and live and explore the islands." More digging, the authors think, could reveal more footprints.">110 billion people have lived on Earth at one time or another. If we walk 10,000 steps a day and live to the grand old age of 65 on average, that means we've collectively left some twenty-four sextillion six hundred and forty quintillion footprints on this planet.

Most of these vanish into nothing, but some, it turns out, can chart the course of human history.

Researchers digging off the west coast of Canada have unearthed what could be the earliest human footprints ever found in North America. Their research was published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One.

Some 13,000 years ago, researchers think, two adults and a child took a barefoot stroll across the shoreline of what is now Calvert Island, British Columbia, Canada. Their footprints add to a growing body of evidence that humans once crossed from Asia to North America along the pacific coast of Canada.

Read more: NASA: Dinosaur Footprint Discovery Reveals Ancient Feeding Frenzy in Space Agency's Own Backyard

The traditional model of how humans first reached North America held that groups traveled along an ice-free corridor in the interior of the continent, Michael Petraglia from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History told Newsweek. "However, evidence is now accumulating to suggest that native peoples may have used the Pacific coast to travel into the Americas, perhaps even using boats and subsisting off of marine resources along the way."

Migration, it seems, was more complicated than scientists once thought.

Researchers found 29 ancient human footprints preserved in beach sediments—clay, sand and gravel—on the shores of the island, which lies off the coast of British Columbia. Many more prints were found, but they were too trampled to be measured.

"This is a spectacular find as human footprints are rare in the archeological record," said Petraglia, who edited the research team's PLOS One paper. "Often they are either not preserved or recognized by archaeologists."

Before this discovery, the earliest human footprints found in North America were only about 5,000 years old, he added. In South America, however, some date to about 14,000 years ago.

journal — View across the research location with Calvert Island in the foreground and Hecate Island in the background. Jim Stafford/PLOS One

Carbon dating revealed the age of the ancient footprints which, if accurate, places them near the end of the last ice age. At this time, the sea level on the shores of Calvert Island was up to ten feet lower than it is today. Still, Calvert would have been only accessible by boat.