Ancient Footprints with Matthew Bennett

The Extreme History Project: The Dirt on the Past

Join us for a conversation with Dr. Matthew Bennett, the lead scientist on a recently published article in the Journal Science that examined a set of human footprints preserved on an ancient lakeshore in New Mexico's White Sands National Park that date to between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. We discuss the fossilized human footprints, but we also talk about footprints of other animals including camels, mammoths, and giant sloths that are intermixed with the human prints at this site. We discuss how Matthew and his team determined that the footprints were those of children and teenagers, and how Matthew and his team have consulted with the 32 indigenous nations in the area and his commitment to an indigenous archaeology framework. Dr. Bennett brings this topic to life with his "evidence-based storytelling" so have a listen and enjoy our conversation about these ancient footprints that have pushed the evidence for the peopling of Americas back to at least 21,000 years ago. For Further Reading: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/24/1040381802/ancient-footprints-new-mexico-white-sands-humans https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-58638854 https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/fossil-footprints/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/a-prehistoric-hunt-preserved-in-incredible-fossilized-tracks/558797/ https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/first-americans-how-and-when-were-americas-populated