These Prehistoric Drag Marks Might Be the Earliest Evidence of Human Transport

In 2021, 23,000-year-old human footprints, the oldest ever discovered in the Americas, rewrote the history of Paleoindians by suggesting they migrated to the continents thousands of years earlier than previously thought. A new study suggests that these early inhabitants weren’t just leaving footprints—they were traveling with transport vehicles. Researchers from the U.S. and U.K. have discovered what may be one of the earliest signs of transportation technology: 23,000-year-old human footprints next to drag marks in New Mexico’s White Sands National Park. Based on the positioning of the footprints, they suggest the drag marks were left behind by Paleoindians pulling simple vehicles shaped out of wooden poles. The researchers published their work on February 15 in the journal Quaternary Science Advances. During the last Ice Age, modern-day Alaska and Siberia were connected by a landmass called the Bering Land Bridge, now underwater. Scholars widely agree that some of the first people ... Read full article.