Data release for Independent age estimates resolve the controversy of ancient human footprints at White Sands

Human footprints at White Sands National Park, New Mexico, USA, reportedly date to between ~23,000 and 21,000 years ago according to radiocarbon dating of seeds from the aquatic plant Ruppia cirrhosa. These ages remain controversial because of potential old carbon reservoir effects that could compromise their accuracy. We present new calibrated 14C ages of terrestrial pollen collected from the same stratigraphic horizons as those of the Ruppia seeds, along with optically stimulated luminescence ages of sediments from within the human footprint?bearing sequence, to evaluate the veracity of the seed ages. The results show that the chronologic framework originally established for the White Sands footprints is robust and reaffirm that humans were present in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum.

美国新墨西哥州白沙国家公园的人类足迹化石，依据对水生植物川蔓藻（Ruppia cirrhosa）种子的放射性碳定年法（radiocarbon dating）检测结果，其形成年代据报为约2.3万至2.1万年前。该年代结论目前仍存在争议，因其可能受到古老碳库效应的影响，进而损害定年结果的准确性。本研究对与川蔓藻种子同地层位采集的陆生花粉开展了新的校正碳十四（14C）年代测定，并对含人类足迹的沉积序列中的沉积物进行了光释光（optically stimulated luminescence）年代分析，以此评估川蔓藻种子定年结果的可靠性。研究结果表明，最初基于白沙国家公园足迹化石建立的年代框架具备稳健可靠性，同时再次证实，末次冰盛期（Last Glacial Maximum）期间北美大陆已有人类活动。