Only in Your State | New Mexico | Monica Spencer

Footprints are a familiar sight across the glistening dunes at White Sands National Park. Human and animal tracks mark hiking trails, the explorations of curious tourists, and treks across the arid environment to food and water sources.

But hidden underneath those wave-like gypsum dunes are prehistoric tracks that give us a hint as to what life may have looked like thousands of years ago. In fact, the National Park Service recently announced a particularly fascinating find: the longest known track of fossilized human footprints.

In early October 2020, a study published in the Quaternary Science Reviews journal documented that this prehistoric trek was discovered at White Sands in 2018.

Measuring nearly one mile in length and more than 10,000 years old, it is the longest fossilized human tracks in the world.

According to the study, researchers believe the source to be a woman or a male adolescent to be trekking across a muddy landscape with a small child.

The prints show the feet slipping occasionally, appearing heavier from additional weight in other areas, and tiny human prints showing up occasionally alongside the adult prints.

Aside from the length the caretaker trekked with the child, it also documents nearby footprints of ancient creatures like giant sloths and mammoths. We can only imagine the circumstances that led to the pair traveling and slipping across the ancient landscape.

At the time, White Sands was the complete opposite of what the national park looks like today.

At the time, it was a lush environment at the end of the Ice Age, home to a location now referred to as Lake Otero. This was a central watering area for not only our ancestors but also for now-extinct animals, like giant sloths, mammoths, and dire wolves. This is all evidenced by the hundreds of footprints found across the park, showing that humans often lived right alongside those ancient animals.

Unfortunately, since the prints have been exposed to the elements, they won’t last long.

This arid environment is constantly shifting so the rapid soil erosion means the freshly exposed prints will soon be lost to time. However, this surprising find makes the experiences of our ancestors feel a little more relatable.