Scientists Find, Earliest Definitive Evidence, of Humans in the Americas.
The topic of when the Americas were first settled has been controversial for decades.
The BBC reports that a team in New Mexico has now found human footprints dating back to between 23,000 and 21,000 years ago.
The discovery suggests there could have been great migrations completely unknown until now.
The footprints were formed in soft mud on the edge of a lake which now forms part of Alkali Flat in White Sands.
According to the BBC, scientists think the tracks were primarily made by teenagers and younger children.
The age of the discovery is key because there have been countless disputed claims of early human settlement in the Americas.
However, the BBC points out, virtually all of those claims have been disputed and largely ignored since the "Clovis First" idea was widely accepted.
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One of the reasons there is so much debate is that there is a real lack of very firm, unequivocal data points.
That's what we think we probably have, Prof Matthew Bennett, first author on the paper from Bournemouth University, via BBC.
According to the BBC, in the 1980s, evidence was found of a 14,500-year-old human presence at Monte Verde, Chile.
According to the BBC, in the 1980s, evidence was found of a 14,500-year-old human presence at Monte Verde, Chile.
Since the 2000s, other sites, such as the 15,500-year-old Buttermilk Creek Complex in central Texas... ... and the 16,000-year-old Cooper's Ferry site in Idaho, have become widely accepted.
The new footprint evidence suggests humans reached the North American interior by the height of the last Ice Age