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Human Footprints In Mexico—Dated to 40,000-Years Ago—Found Near Previous Discoveries 1981 study dated human traces at site to 250,000 B.C. by Dr. Greg Little In the summer of 2003 a team of archaeologists began working at archaeological sites near a dried lake bed located about 75 miles southeast of Mexico City. Deciding to move from one site to another, the team took a "short-cut" and walked over the dried lake. Much to their surprise, they discovered over 200 footprints that had hardened into the bottom of the lake after a coating of volcanic ash suddenly covered them some time in the distant past. The footprints appeared to be those of humans—from both adults and children. Geoarchaeologist Silva Gonzalez, of John Moores University in the UK, asserts that these are definitely human footprints. Because all the prints were moving in the same direction, Gonzalez believes that the people may have been fleeing an eruption of a nearby volcano. The researchers also found other prints from animals, which were also moving away from the volcano. Making the first report of the discovery at London's Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition on July 4, 2005, Gonzalez gave another astonishing finding from the discovery. Gonzalez's team was able to remove the hardened layer of volcanic ash from some of the prints and found shells in the layer just above the ash. The University of Oxford carbon dated the shells and dated them to 40,000-years ago. American archaeologists at the London conference expressed skepticism, and Gonzalez plans more study of the find. The location of the footprints is the Valsequillo Lake region near Puebla, Mexico. This particular area has also been the focal point of other discoveries greatly ridiculed by American archaeologists. In 2000, private sector archaeologist Stuart Fiedel listed most of the sites in the Americas where strong archaeological evidence had been recovered of pre-Clovis (pre-9500 B.C.) habitations, but also finds which have been routinely dismissed by American archaeologists. Fiedel noted that five separate sites at Valsequillo yielded stone artifacts, freshwater shells, points, knives, scrapers, blades, and other human artifacts. Carbon dating on various artifacts at these sites centered around 22,000 B.C. While U.S. academics have ridiculed these finds, another study from Valsequillo was even more controversial. In the 1960s, two Mexican archaeologists found stone tools at Valsequillo. The archaeologists found nothing associated with the tools that could be carbon dated, so they called in a team of geologists from the U.S. Geological Survey. The geologists carefully identified several layers where the tools were found and subjected the layers to four different dating methods. These included uranium series, fission tracking, and tephra hydrating dating. The results were astonishing and the study was published in a 1981 issue of Quaternary Research. The dating all gave consistent results: the site appeared to have been occupied by humans 250,000-years ago. Valsequillo certainly has been a focal point of research and ridicule and there will, no doubt, be more to come from this most interesting site. Sources: Nature press release; Mound Builders by Greg Little, et. al.; Ancient South America by Greg Little, et. al. | |
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