White Sands Footprint Site

Record summary

The White Sands site contains human footprints preserved in former lake-margin sediments, along with animal tracks and plant remains. Dating studies have proposed an age during the Last Glacial Maximum, which would place people in North America much earlier than the widely accepted Clovis horizon. The evidence is especially important because footprints can document presence without requiring a conventional artifact assemblage. However, researchers continue to evaluate dating methods, sediment recycling, stratigraphic relationships, and whether independent chronological approaches converge on the same age.