There are plenty of fossil footprints in White Sands National Park in New Mexico, human and animal alike. What is astonishing is how scientists have identified one individual's path and what happened along the way, all from the footprints left behind.
The footprints were spotted in a dried-up lakebed known as a playa, which contains literally hundreds of thousands of footprints dating from the end of the last ice age (about 11,550 years ago) to sometime before about 13,000 years ago.
Unlike many other known footprint trackways, this one is remarkable for its length – over at least 1.5km – and straightness. This individual did not deviate from their course. But what is even more remarkable is that they followed their own trackway home again a few hours later.
Each track tells a story: a slip here, a stretch there to avoid a puddle. The ground was wet and slick with mud and they were walking at speed, which would have been exhausting. We estimate that they were walking at over 1.7 metres per second – a comfortable walking speed is about 1.2 to 1.5 metres per second on a flat dry surface. The tracks are quite small and were most likely made by a woman, or possibly an adolescent male.
But that's just the beginning. This person was carrying a child, probably around three years old, who was set down occasionally and then picked back up. A sloth and a mammoth came by, but only the sloth noticed a human had been there. We don't know the whole story, but what scientists have found is quite amazing, and you can read about it at The Conversation. -via Damn Interesting