Is This The Oldest Human Footprint In the Americas?

Described as the oldest human footprint in the Americas, the impression, found in Chile, is about 15,600 years old. (Credit Moreno et al 2019, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0213572) It may look more like the impression of a jellybean in Play-Doh, or excavations for a kidney-shaped swimming pool, but researchers say the find, at about 15,600 years old, is the oldest human footprint in the Americas — and the latest evidence that people were living throughout the New World much earlier than thought. According to paleontologists, the single footprint — technically called an ichnofossil, or ichnite — belonged to a human. The impression, preserved in a buried layer of sediment, was discovered in 2010 at the Pilauco site in Chile. Researchers have spent nearly a decade trying to determine what made the print, and when. Although animal bones, including those of a mastodon, were found nearby, the team concluded that the print was made ...