Are you looking for a national park to visit in New Mexico for ancient history? Well, footprints and fossils are familiar sights 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.
If you’re planning a visit to this incredible national park, there’s no better time to visit than during National Park Week. Learn all about this celebration of America’s great outdoors — including fee-free days throughout the year!
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.
A few years ago, 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 known track of fossilized human footprints in the world.
According to the study, researchers believe the source to be a woman or a male adolescent 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 National Park was the complete opposite of what it 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.
White Sands National Park is located approximately 16 miles southwest of Alamogordo via Route 70.
Although you may not be able to get close to these ancient tracks, a visit here still offers some of the most fun things to do outside in New Mexico like hiking, biking, and bird watching, just to name a few.
Have you been to White Sands National Park? If so, we'd love to see your photos and hear about your experience there. You can find details about the park, these human footprints, and other interesting fossils on the official park website, as well as on its Facebook page.
These footprints aren't the only fascinating recent finds in New Mexico. The fossilized remains of a carnivorous dinosaur were found in the Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, a quicker and stronger version of its velociraptor ancestor. Read more about this unique find in New Mexico’s Badlands.
Subscribe to our newsletter
Get the latest updates and news
Thank you for subscribing!
