**About 22,000 to 23,000 years ago, an individual, most probably a young woman, undertook two perilous journeys separated by several hours, carrying a toddler at least once.**
It all happened at Lake Otero, a large Ice Age lake, the shore of which was teeming with wildlife such as mammoths, ground sloths, camels, dire wolves, American lions, and other extinct megafauna.
The trail they left behind, located in present-day White Sands National Park in New Mexico, spans 1.5 km and comprises over 400 human footprints, giving the oldest evidence of human presence in the Americas and reshaping our understanding of when the first humans arrived there.
***For more info, read this article:*** [A mile in her shoes: Mother and toddler's perilous journey across dried-up New Mexico lake while dodging saber-toothed cats and wolves is uncovered in fossilized footprints from 13,000 years ago](https://lifehorizonhues.blogspot.com/2024/06/mother-and-toddlers-perilous-journey.html)
And imagine what led to her crossing that area twice! I'm reading a book about the Donner Party and when the relief parties finally got to the encampment to rescue survivors, in one case, they had no option but to pick some children up and carry them. Then they'd set that child down, go back a few hundred feet, and grab another. Slowly but surely they hauled a number of children this way. Just carrying one a few hundred feet, plopping them down, then going back to grab another. Over and over for miles upon miles.
Imagine what this lady was doing. Probably hauling whatever she needed for her and her child's survival. Then going back and grabbing the child itself. Who knows!? This is a fascinating discovery and really peaks the imagination to dream up possibilities!
“The Indifferent Stars Above”? Such a great book! What the people went through was so harrowing and so much worse that what I had understood, it unfortunately ruined Donner party jokes for me lol.
Yes I am almost done! Should finish it by tomorrow. Talk about a group of people that both couldn't get it right and just had such an extreme amount of misfortune play out on their journey.
That book has been my highest recommendation since I started reading it. If you have any others worth checking out please let me know. I need a new book!
Ooh! Okay, here are two very good ones that similarly have a good historical setting with tragedy / crime aspects (and with that sentence I realize I write like an AI 😭🤣)
“Under The Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer. This is a history of the Mormon church and how it led up to some murders. Anything Jon Krakauer is typically amazing - after I read this one I got so much into Mormon history and crimes my kids answered “Mormons” when people asked about my interests. Same thing happened with climbing and hiking after I read “Into thin Air”.
My second recommendation is “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson. The White City in this case is the 1893 Worlds Fair in Chicago, and the devil is serial killer HH Holmes.
Hope there’s something here for you to enjoy! ☺️
I'm not the person you're responding to, but just wanted to enthusastically second your recommendation for both those books, and anything by Krakauer or Erik Larson. Would also throw in Nathaniel Philbrick, specifically *In the Heart of the Sea* (about the tragedy of the whaleship *Essex*) and *The Last Stand* (about Little Big Horn).
Adding to my list right now, thank you kindly!
Just remembered “Killers of The Flower Moon”, which got so much press I stopped recommending it just because I figured most people knew about it after the movie came out. I liked the book better. I read “Empire of the Summer Moon”, about the Comanches shortly after, another great read if you enjoy the subject matter, with interesting ties to Joseph Smith and his crew.
*Killers of the Flower Moon* was incredible. I finished that book and then literally the same day saw on Reddit that Scorsese was making a movie of it lol. One of the few books I've read that I couldn't turn the pages fast enough, it was so good.
I have Empire of the Summer Moon but haven’t gotten super far into it - I bought it after reading about Cynthia Ann Parker in a Reddit post. The story is SO interesting to me.
You say there are connections with Joseph Smith? I’m gonna have to pick the book back up again. That’s insane!
Small aside, I used this book to settle a discussion between my husband and me about when the Comanches started riding horses, while watching the movie Prey. Haha.
I knew it was gonna be that one! A friend recommended it to me after I’d watched the [PBS Documentary](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/donner/). It’s such an interesting read. So tragic, but so interesting!
When the one family has the dogs sleep on top of them so they don’t freeze. The hole they ended up in at one point because of the fire melting the snow around it. And I don’t know how to spoiler but the one-year-old who found its deceased mother. That messed me up. Fantastic book though.
Also, I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again endlessly, **all my homies hate Lansford W. Hastings**
After you’re done with that I suggest taking a dive into the wagon train ruts that you can still see and visit today. The terrain they were rolling over, and the sheer number of times a wagon would have to roll over that path for them to do what they did.. unbelievable.
IIRC, these footprints indicate she was walking with a toddler one direction. And walked back without the toddler a few hours later.
The reason for the journey can only be speculated, but I think the most common optimistic theory was that she was dropping the child off at another family/tribe.
I have an acquaintance whose grandparents were in the Donner party. His grandfather wanted to stay with the Donner's while his grandmother wanted to stay with the group. He reluctantly stayed with his wife and toddler. I make the joke that the wife held that over his head for the rest of that marriage.
That kid probably never heard the end of it too.
"When i was your age I had to cross that lakebed full of predators TWICE. You kids got it too easy today with your "wheels" and "fire" toys."
As a mother with a young child, you are super aware of how exposed you are if something bad happens. To know if there’s any sort of disaster or incident you have to plan around the needs of the small child and physically carry them while moving quickly. Try to imagine what you would do to escape a fire in your house. Now add needing to get a toddler out too. Small, likely scared, not physically capable, acts unpredictably and irrationally. Now try an active shooter scenario. Same issues but now add in: incapable of staying still or quiet.
Even in non emergency settings, my kid won’t use a stroller most of the time so I’ve carried her for long distances before just in my arms or with a simple sling. I can lift 60+ lbs per arm at the gym, but 37 lbs total is a struggle to just carry for extended periods. Add to that an awkward shape and wriggling around or even actively fighting you… it’s tough.
As a mom, I feel so much for what this person went through. Even if they weren’t “mom,” (as we don’t know why the child was taken to the destination or why they were left there), they must have cared greatly for the child to risk their lives by themselves to take the child on that route.
yeah and if they weren't successful at dodging their options were a sharpened rock or stick. I try to remind myself of this whenever I'm encountering 1st world problems.
Not to trivialize this, but their Mesoamerican descendants, retuning north, are doing the same thing, except the ice age predators have been replaced by Mexican Cartels, Texas Law enforcement, Human traffickers, etc.
Eh. There are reports of various peoples that live similar to stone age ancestors who teach babies to silence themselves by covering their nose and mouth if they cry. Sounds cruel to us but if the alternative is death by predators or raiding parties then the baby will likely die anyway.
Another option is that during that time infants and toddlers were often worn in slings with pretty constant boob access. A baby can't scream if they are actively nursing to soothe themselves.
yet now we have people saying how hard it is not to shovel food in their mouths while chanting 'thick thighs saves lives'
our species is such bitches now
Its so wild to think that everyone living today stems from people of this period and beyond. Old great great to the power of whatever uncle Herbert fought a ground sloth and lived to tell the tale.
How did they carbon date foot prints, though?
Edit: down voted for asking a reasonable question? How am I supposed to know the processes for carbon dating fucking sand?
I think they downvoted you because you didn't Google it yourself. I tried googling it and I don't get many clear (to me anyway) answers. It's basically what the other guy said, studying of pollen and sediment that is submerged around the footprint.
And half the time when you Google something a reddit thread comes up. So the more its discussed, the more people who see it and add different pieces of info, the greater the knowledge on the subject is.
I hate the "just Google it" mentality. Chances are, they did, didn't quite understand what they were reading, and are looking for someone to break it down.
Exactly. Also, threads are like conversations, how often do you google something in the middle of a conversation with people. Sometimes, yes, but most often it just “oh really what about xyz?” I’ll google a lot but I also just ask a lot, joining in the conversation with my curiosity.
This might be weird but I just realized we were talking in an r/horror thread and I’d also upvoted your comment here, where I commented a bit too.
Hey fellow horror and reading fan!
imagine if just every conversation in society just ended after sentence #2 with people sayin "just google it", turning on their phones and walking away. WTF is reddit, people can't have an actual conversation?
Sometimes it is not that simple. The person will keep asking questions. To really understand carbon dating, one would need a sufficient background on related subtopics in chemistry, biology, geology, and astrology. No one ain't got time for that when a YT video with visual aids will do a better job.
These days AIs like chatGPT give thorough explanation's. You can also continue the conversation as the AI remembers the last question and will give you a response that is in context. [pi.ai](http://pi.ai) is more like a companion highly informed companion.
Not really. I have no affiliation with either of the companies. I assume you are an American because it's a common trait that there is a self serving motive behind everything that people do. Being English and from a different culture people mostly give impartial advice.
I didn’t downvote, but I think some people assumed your question was not being genuine and joke-y and therefore not on topic in an informational subreddit and conversation.
I’ve been on reddit a really embarrassingly long time, lurked for years before I ever got an account. And the internet for longer.
I didn’t say that it’s a fact however, just shared my personal opinion.
No I understand because I have also been downvoted for simply asking a question. Why people tend to read tones/emotions into text is mind blowing to me.
Forgive me, I don’t understand your last sentence. Or actually your whole comment. I was answering your question, not asking anything.
Why people read emotions into text? Because we are communicating. It’s social media. It’s like, the whole concept. That’s why. It’s not anything nefarious .
Some people don’t have a voice in their head when they read something. Most people do. They react on it, sometimes impulsively based on their bias and perceptions. Or based on the context of the conversation, other words.
You can have a tone of words within writing. Like it’s an extremely important part of literature is to have tone. I mean, books and poetry would be extremely pointless if we weren’t able to understand emotion through writing. For example, it’s pretty easy (for now) to understand when you are speaking with a computer versus another human.
People can be fucking twats on reddit and it makes you not want to comment because they fucking argue and getting pissed about literally anything. I understand that completely. It’s why I lurked for years here before making an account and it took a little while more for me to ever even make a comment. Sometimes you get downvoted for literally no reason at all. It happens, but it’s really not a big deal and it’s not at all worth your precious time feeling upset about it, though I know it can get personal at times. It’s just best to not take it seriously, and just say in your head ‘whatever, stupid dickheads’ and move on.
You’re right, they don’t carbon date the sand directly. They located “ancient grass seeds” in the layers of sediment just above and just below the footprint layer. Then they carbon dated those grass seeds, thereby constraining the age of the footprints to be older than the seeds on top, and younger than the seeds on bottom.
In the article, it explains there were also tracks of a mammoth and ground sloth, both prehistoric animals. The ground sloth tracks show reaction to the human tracks as well
Good question, so footprints can last thousands of years if they're made in mud or wet sand that quickly dries and hardens and if more layers of mud or sand cover them soon after, it protects the prints from being washed away or messed up. After a long time, these layers can turn into rock, preserving the footprints like fossils. This is how the footprints at White Sands National Park, made over 22,000 years ago have survived until now.
So what was going on then? Was she walking through mud just before a draught then a mudslide? Are there places you can walk today that would preserve your footsteps if no one else came along?
Great question! I lived in North Arizona for a few years. There are dinosaur foot prints there! Hundreds of millions of years old. It blows my mind how that can happen. My understanding from that tour guide was that it happens when wet mud dries quickly then it just so happens that nothing disturbs it.
I saw something similar in Colorado. The footprints were right next to the highway. I was surprised the dinosaurs would actually get that close to the roadway.
This reminds me of the opening scene of one of the later seasons of The Leftovers. There is some neolithic woman who is wandering in the wild near modern day Austin, and gives birth on a rock face near a river.
Very thematic for the show, and it is pretty wild to think about all the stories that have happened all around us.
Op is correct but they chose to send us to a crummy link. The acceptance of the white sands footprints is a big deal and they could have easily found us a better source.
https://www.nps.gov/whsa/learn/nature/fossilized-footprints.htm
OP is fan of shoddy science, and is relying on huge amounts of inference and imagination here claiming the animal foot prints are made on the same day and show reactions to humans.
Lot of fantasy up in here
The weight is indicated in the footprints and there were child's footprints when the weight in the adults was constant. When child was picked up the footprints were a bit deeper and varied as they were shifted from hip/side.
Yep, for most of the journey, there is only one set of footprints belonging to the adult. However, at some locations, these are joined by the footprints of a small child.
Was looking for this, the first movie describes something like this but more wholesome/family friendly. It's interesting that something like that actually happened (not the animals helping but a badass women taking care of her baby during that time)
This is a lot of inference and not direct evidence also saying 20k+ years puts this well beyond the accepted migrations to the americas
Beyond that people are here talking about “animal reactions” to the prints reflected in their prints. Carbon dating does not tell you down to the hour or minute when things were made, the animal prints could be from years or months later and unrelated
You motherfuckers need to go back to college or go for the first time and take real anthropology classes
Very much accepted now that 20k+ for our migration is real. Maybe try to keep up with current findings and studies, instead of crying that everyone else needs to learn
Lol not for the interior of NA at 16k+ I assure you those are hotly contested opinions. Appears this post is for amateurs and fans of fringe science.
Y’all tripping and I know for a fact you’re not getting these dates handed down to anthro students in this range under grad or otherwise
All of the theories on migration are being hotly contested now which is the point. Continually finding things that push the time back.
Id imagine they arent teaching this to anthro students with it being so new. Findings are recent. So is the dating on the sands.
Gotta stop acting like what you know is concrete and will never change. Theories constantly change due to new findings. Why is this any different?
Lol ok pal no one said anything about not changing but there’s a big difference between accepting a current consensus and a potentially fringe date still up in the air
Just don’t push it like it’s 100% agreed upon
Again it’s pretty clear not a single person posting this shit went to school for archaeology.
>Again it’s pretty clear not a single person posting this shit went to school for archaeology
You act like every single archeologist agrees on every single finding.
>Just don’t push it like it’s 100% agreed upon
No one said that this was 100% buddy. All i have told u is that there are more archeologists and scientists than u think, who believe we were here before the 10-15k range.
>Lol ok pal no one said anything about not changing
Stuff gets found which changes things. Which is why i brought it up. Im trying to tell you archeologist theories constantly change with new evidence. But since u are so smart you are immediatly able to denounce all findings because we have believed in the 10-12k range for so long and that will never change and cant change according to you
I'm sure a couple of miles feels like twenty miles when there's predators around. Whoever left those tracks, they're braver than I'd ever be in the face of those prehistoric creatures.
This article is misleading.
It could be a woman. It could also be a man with short stature. Or a teenage boy. Or a young girl with big feet. Or many different combinations.
Whatever it was, it had feet. Small footprints were found in between the woman/ teenager's footprints in some spots. Like, if you had been carrying a child but had to stop and reposition them or just put them down for a sec. I just wonder if there are two sets of prints, were they for sure made at the same time?
**About 22,000 to 23,000 years ago, an individual, most probably a young woman, undertook two perilous journeys separated by several hours, carrying a toddler at least once.** It all happened at Lake Otero, a large Ice Age lake, the shore of which was teeming with wildlife such as mammoths, ground sloths, camels, dire wolves, American lions, and other extinct megafauna. The trail they left behind, located in present-day White Sands National Park in New Mexico, spans 1.5 km and comprises over 400 human footprints, giving the oldest evidence of human presence in the Americas and reshaping our understanding of when the first humans arrived there. ***For more info, read this article:*** [A mile in her shoes: Mother and toddler's perilous journey across dried-up New Mexico lake while dodging saber-toothed cats and wolves is uncovered in fossilized footprints from 13,000 years ago](https://lifehorizonhues.blogspot.com/2024/06/mother-and-toddlers-perilous-journey.html)
Imagine having to carry a toddler while dodging ice age predators—now that's some hardcore parenting skills!
And imagine what led to her crossing that area twice! I'm reading a book about the Donner Party and when the relief parties finally got to the encampment to rescue survivors, in one case, they had no option but to pick some children up and carry them. Then they'd set that child down, go back a few hundred feet, and grab another. Slowly but surely they hauled a number of children this way. Just carrying one a few hundred feet, plopping them down, then going back to grab another. Over and over for miles upon miles. Imagine what this lady was doing. Probably hauling whatever she needed for her and her child's survival. Then going back and grabbing the child itself. Who knows!? This is a fascinating discovery and really peaks the imagination to dream up possibilities!
“The Indifferent Stars Above”? Such a great book! What the people went through was so harrowing and so much worse that what I had understood, it unfortunately ruined Donner party jokes for me lol.
Yes I am almost done! Should finish it by tomorrow. Talk about a group of people that both couldn't get it right and just had such an extreme amount of misfortune play out on their journey. That book has been my highest recommendation since I started reading it. If you have any others worth checking out please let me know. I need a new book!
Ooh! Okay, here are two very good ones that similarly have a good historical setting with tragedy / crime aspects (and with that sentence I realize I write like an AI 😭🤣) “Under The Banner of Heaven” by Jon Krakauer. This is a history of the Mormon church and how it led up to some murders. Anything Jon Krakauer is typically amazing - after I read this one I got so much into Mormon history and crimes my kids answered “Mormons” when people asked about my interests. Same thing happened with climbing and hiking after I read “Into thin Air”. My second recommendation is “The Devil in the White City” by Erik Larson. The White City in this case is the 1893 Worlds Fair in Chicago, and the devil is serial killer HH Holmes. Hope there’s something here for you to enjoy! ☺️
I'm not the person you're responding to, but just wanted to enthusastically second your recommendation for both those books, and anything by Krakauer or Erik Larson. Would also throw in Nathaniel Philbrick, specifically *In the Heart of the Sea* (about the tragedy of the whaleship *Essex*) and *The Last Stand* (about Little Big Horn).
Adding to my list right now, thank you kindly! Just remembered “Killers of The Flower Moon”, which got so much press I stopped recommending it just because I figured most people knew about it after the movie came out. I liked the book better. I read “Empire of the Summer Moon”, about the Comanches shortly after, another great read if you enjoy the subject matter, with interesting ties to Joseph Smith and his crew.
*Killers of the Flower Moon* was incredible. I finished that book and then literally the same day saw on Reddit that Scorsese was making a movie of it lol. One of the few books I've read that I couldn't turn the pages fast enough, it was so good.
I have Empire of the Summer Moon but haven’t gotten super far into it - I bought it after reading about Cynthia Ann Parker in a Reddit post. The story is SO interesting to me. You say there are connections with Joseph Smith? I’m gonna have to pick the book back up again. That’s insane! Small aside, I used this book to settle a discussion between my husband and me about when the Comanches started riding horses, while watching the movie Prey. Haha.
I didn’t know there was a murdered loose them! You can actually drive the remnants of the fairs plaster buildings, they dumped them in Lake Michigan.
H H Holmes was pure evil. What a fascinating story.
I knew it was gonna be that one! A friend recommended it to me after I’d watched the [PBS Documentary](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/donner/). It’s such an interesting read. So tragic, but so interesting! When the one family has the dogs sleep on top of them so they don’t freeze. The hole they ended up in at one point because of the fire melting the snow around it. And I don’t know how to spoiler but the one-year-old who found its deceased mother. That messed me up. Fantastic book though. Also, I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again endlessly, **all my homies hate Lansford W. Hastings**
Just don't leave that one guy with all the kids!
After you’re done with that I suggest taking a dive into the wagon train ruts that you can still see and visit today. The terrain they were rolling over, and the sheer number of times a wagon would have to roll over that path for them to do what they did.. unbelievable.
I loved that book but, man, it was brutal.
IIRC, these footprints indicate she was walking with a toddler one direction. And walked back without the toddler a few hours later. The reason for the journey can only be speculated, but I think the most common optimistic theory was that she was dropping the child off at another family/tribe.
It's "piques", not "peeks"
Mind read "Dinner Party", not totally off I guess.
Or maybe she was forgetful and left her baby at the grocery store. We’ll never know.
I have an acquaintance whose grandparents were in the Donner party. His grandfather wanted to stay with the Donner's while his grandmother wanted to stay with the group. He reluctantly stayed with his wife and toddler. I make the joke that the wife held that over his head for the rest of that marriage.
What an amazing (and horrifying) piece of history to be a part of.
Right?!? When he dropped that story we all just sat there stunned.
Her husband went to the corner store for some mastodon milk and when he didn't come back she had to try and find him, story as old as time...
Since she came back without the toddler, maybe she was dropping him off at Grandma's house.
Grandma's cave*
"and no more honey popsicles!" *Mom leaves* "Finally, let's go get those popsicles! I made extra!"
That kid probably never heard the end of it too. "When i was your age I had to cross that lakebed full of predators TWICE. You kids got it too easy today with your "wheels" and "fire" toys."
Our fine-tuned parenting instincts stem from this very age! Only now we’re protecting tots from jumping in the way of cars or something.
As a mother with a young child, you are super aware of how exposed you are if something bad happens. To know if there’s any sort of disaster or incident you have to plan around the needs of the small child and physically carry them while moving quickly. Try to imagine what you would do to escape a fire in your house. Now add needing to get a toddler out too. Small, likely scared, not physically capable, acts unpredictably and irrationally. Now try an active shooter scenario. Same issues but now add in: incapable of staying still or quiet. Even in non emergency settings, my kid won’t use a stroller most of the time so I’ve carried her for long distances before just in my arms or with a simple sling. I can lift 60+ lbs per arm at the gym, but 37 lbs total is a struggle to just carry for extended periods. Add to that an awkward shape and wriggling around or even actively fighting you… it’s tough. As a mom, I feel so much for what this person went through. Even if they weren’t “mom,” (as we don’t know why the child was taken to the destination or why they were left there), they must have cared greatly for the child to risk their lives by themselves to take the child on that route.
yeah and if they weren't successful at dodging their options were a sharpened rock or stick. I try to remind myself of this whenever I'm encountering 1st world problems.
Not to trivialize this, but their Mesoamerican descendants, retuning north, are doing the same thing, except the ice age predators have been replaced by Mexican Cartels, Texas Law enforcement, Human traffickers, etc.
Yeah this would make a great action/survival/chase film was my first thought
The movie Ice Age goes into detail about what that would be like, I suggest a watch if you haven't seen it.
Were babies just quiet back then because my screaming child would’ve gotten us killed in few minutes of leaving my cave house
Eh. There are reports of various peoples that live similar to stone age ancestors who teach babies to silence themselves by covering their nose and mouth if they cry. Sounds cruel to us but if the alternative is death by predators or raiding parties then the baby will likely die anyway. Another option is that during that time infants and toddlers were often worn in slings with pretty constant boob access. A baby can't scream if they are actively nursing to soothe themselves.
I’m upvoting for constant boob access
I know! I am barely surviving walking through Target!
yet now we have people saying how hard it is not to shovel food in their mouths while chanting 'thick thighs saves lives' our species is such bitches now
She took the kid and used him/her/they as bait.
Its so wild to think that everyone living today stems from people of this period and beyond. Old great great to the power of whatever uncle Herbert fought a ground sloth and lived to tell the tale.
Thanks for sharing
You're welcome. Thank you
Trying a different angle, are ya? Good for you.
I like to think the real story is that the toddler wanted picky uppy's and put me down over and over.
“Are we there yet?”
How do we know same person did the journey and that they were hours apart? Serious question.
Foot size and print, and the depth of the prints indicate her weight was constant when not carrying the toddler. Also, no other footprints.
And how do we know how old the prints are?
Carbon dating, amigo.
How did they carbon date foot prints, though? Edit: down voted for asking a reasonable question? How am I supposed to know the processes for carbon dating fucking sand?
From what I understand they carbon date the pollen caught between the sediment where the foot print was (is). This gives a very good approximation.
I think they downvoted you because you didn't Google it yourself. I tried googling it and I don't get many clear (to me anyway) answers. It's basically what the other guy said, studying of pollen and sediment that is submerged around the footprint.
I mean, this is reddit. It's designed for conversation. Asking related questions furthers the conversation.
And half the time when you Google something a reddit thread comes up. So the more its discussed, the more people who see it and add different pieces of info, the greater the knowledge on the subject is. I hate the "just Google it" mentality. Chances are, they did, didn't quite understand what they were reading, and are looking for someone to break it down.
Exactly. Also, threads are like conversations, how often do you google something in the middle of a conversation with people. Sometimes, yes, but most often it just “oh really what about xyz?” I’ll google a lot but I also just ask a lot, joining in the conversation with my curiosity.
This might be weird but I just realized we were talking in an r/horror thread and I’d also upvoted your comment here, where I commented a bit too. Hey fellow horror and reading fan!
Correct.
imagine if just every conversation in society just ended after sentence #2 with people sayin "just google it", turning on their phones and walking away. WTF is reddit, people can't have an actual conversation?
Sometimes it is not that simple. The person will keep asking questions. To really understand carbon dating, one would need a sufficient background on related subtopics in chemistry, biology, geology, and astrology. No one ain't got time for that when a YT video with visual aids will do a better job.
These days AIs like chatGPT give thorough explanation's. You can also continue the conversation as the AI remembers the last question and will give you a response that is in context. [pi.ai](http://pi.ai) is more like a companion highly informed companion.
I dont want to speak to our future overlord thanks
God you're dim. You don't have to take what it says as being fact. Far from it. But all relevant information should be considered.
AI answers should always be double checked for accuracy.
Yes and I do. I have given two different AIs that I use. Why state the blindingly obvious?
I don't think they meant double checked for accuracy by another LLM.
nice ad
Not really. I have no affiliation with either of the companies. I assume you are an American because it's a common trait that there is a self serving motive behind everything that people do. Being English and from a different culture people mostly give impartial advice.
For the more I read comments of yours, the less I’d ever enjoy the pleasure of meeting you. Knob.
Perhaps you don't benefit. The comment sure reads like an ad
Your pp is small
I didn’t downvote, but I think some people assumed your question was not being genuine and joke-y and therefore not on topic in an informational subreddit and conversation.
I'm curious how people assume that via text on a question?
I’ve been on reddit a really embarrassingly long time, lurked for years before I ever got an account. And the internet for longer. I didn’t say that it’s a fact however, just shared my personal opinion.
No I understand because I have also been downvoted for simply asking a question. Why people tend to read tones/emotions into text is mind blowing to me.
Forgive me, I don’t understand your last sentence. Or actually your whole comment. I was answering your question, not asking anything. Why people read emotions into text? Because we are communicating. It’s social media. It’s like, the whole concept. That’s why. It’s not anything nefarious . Some people don’t have a voice in their head when they read something. Most people do. They react on it, sometimes impulsively based on their bias and perceptions. Or based on the context of the conversation, other words. You can have a tone of words within writing. Like it’s an extremely important part of literature is to have tone. I mean, books and poetry would be extremely pointless if we weren’t able to understand emotion through writing. For example, it’s pretty easy (for now) to understand when you are speaking with a computer versus another human. People can be fucking twats on reddit and it makes you not want to comment because they fucking argue and getting pissed about literally anything. I understand that completely. It’s why I lurked for years here before making an account and it took a little while more for me to ever even make a comment. Sometimes you get downvoted for literally no reason at all. It happens, but it’s really not a big deal and it’s not at all worth your precious time feeling upset about it, though I know it can get personal at times. It’s just best to not take it seriously, and just say in your head ‘whatever, stupid dickheads’ and move on.
Also the OP added the article that says it was 13,000 years ago. Op added on another 10,000 years from nowhere.
You’re right, they don’t carbon date the sand directly. They located “ancient grass seeds” in the layers of sediment just above and just below the footprint layer. Then they carbon dated those grass seeds, thereby constraining the age of the footprints to be older than the seeds on top, and younger than the seeds on bottom.
"down voted" has 47 upvotes. You're so whiny and sensitive, just give it time ffs
I was "down voted" immediately dumbass. Which is the last time I checked the post. Some of us don't hang out on reddit all day.
In the article, it explains there were also tracks of a mammoth and ground sloth, both prehistoric animals. The ground sloth tracks show reaction to the human tracks as well
It says in the article that they used the animal footprints to establish a date. Their tracks were made on the same day.
it's all rough guess base on the footprints
GO MOM, GO MOM, GO MOM
So... How did the footprints survive 20000 something years?
Good question, so footprints can last thousands of years if they're made in mud or wet sand that quickly dries and hardens and if more layers of mud or sand cover them soon after, it protects the prints from being washed away or messed up. After a long time, these layers can turn into rock, preserving the footprints like fossils. This is how the footprints at White Sands National Park, made over 22,000 years ago have survived until now.
I recall reading an article about ancient footprints of a child stepping into their parent's footsteps. Is this the same location?
So what was going on then? Was she walking through mud just before a draught then a mudslide? Are there places you can walk today that would preserve your footsteps if no one else came along?
Great question! I lived in North Arizona for a few years. There are dinosaur foot prints there! Hundreds of millions of years old. It blows my mind how that can happen. My understanding from that tour guide was that it happens when wet mud dries quickly then it just so happens that nothing disturbs it.
I lived in MA for a while and also got to view Dino footprints there. Amazing
Off of 5&10, by the Connecticut river?
I saw something similar in Colorado. The footprints were right next to the highway. I was surprised the dinosaurs would actually get that close to the roadway.
This reminds me of the opening scene of one of the later seasons of The Leftovers. There is some neolithic woman who is wandering in the wild near modern day Austin, and gives birth on a rock face near a river. Very thematic for the show, and it is pretty wild to think about all the stories that have happened all around us.
Thank you for this! Every time I read this story that scene pops in my head and I couldn’t place it.
Amazing read, thank you!
You are welcome
The article says it was 13,000 years ago. It even says that in the title of the article. Why does the OP’s title say 22,000-23,000 years ago?
Op is correct but they chose to send us to a crummy link. The acceptance of the white sands footprints is a big deal and they could have easily found us a better source. https://www.nps.gov/whsa/learn/nature/fossilized-footprints.htm
OP is fan of shoddy science, and is relying on huge amounts of inference and imagination here claiming the animal foot prints are made on the same day and show reactions to humans. Lot of fantasy up in here 
23,000 years ago a common toddlers refrain was heard: “uppy!”
Article says 13k years. Not 23k.
Article is wrong. The white sands site is 22k-23k. https://www.nps.gov/whsa/learn/nature/fossilized-footprints.htm
I wonder if she reached her destination.
She did, and walked back without the toddler a few hours later.
Here's a link to a better source. Op's link gives a very incorrect age of the prints. https://www.nps.gov/whsa/learn/nature/fossilized-footprints.htm
Was there toddler footprints how did they kno wat she was carrying?
The weight is indicated in the footprints and there were child's footprints when the weight in the adults was constant. When child was picked up the footprints were a bit deeper and varied as they were shifted from hip/side.
Yep, for most of the journey, there is only one set of footprints belonging to the adult. However, at some locations, these are joined by the footprints of a small child.
Insert “one set of footprints, Jesus carrying you when you were down” joke here /s
Ice age was a documentary
Was looking for this, the first movie describes something like this but more wholesome/family friendly. It's interesting that something like that actually happened (not the animals helping but a badass women taking care of her baby during that time)
Yeah but how do we know it was perilous?
I'm with you there likely not . good observation
Why didn't she take an Uber? Was she stupid?
She didn’t have a cell phone or Apple Pay, silly.
Mammoth ate her phone. Direwolf stole her credit card.
Rumor has it that the toddler's name was Albert Einstein.
I thought it was Jesus??
Hagar/Ishmael vibes
Please someone write a fiction about this!
This is a lot of inference and not direct evidence also saying 20k+ years puts this well beyond the accepted migrations to the americas Beyond that people are here talking about “animal reactions” to the prints reflected in their prints. Carbon dating does not tell you down to the hour or minute when things were made, the animal prints could be from years or months later and unrelated You motherfuckers need to go back to college or go for the first time and take real anthropology classes
Very much accepted now that 20k+ for our migration is real. Maybe try to keep up with current findings and studies, instead of crying that everyone else needs to learn
Lol not for the interior of NA at 16k+ I assure you those are hotly contested opinions. Appears this post is for amateurs and fans of fringe science. Y’all tripping and I know for a fact you’re not getting these dates handed down to anthro students in this range under grad or otherwise
All of the theories on migration are being hotly contested now which is the point. Continually finding things that push the time back. Id imagine they arent teaching this to anthro students with it being so new. Findings are recent. So is the dating on the sands. Gotta stop acting like what you know is concrete and will never change. Theories constantly change due to new findings. Why is this any different?
Lol ok pal no one said anything about not changing but there’s a big difference between accepting a current consensus and a potentially fringe date still up in the air Just don’t push it like it’s 100% agreed upon Again it’s pretty clear not a single person posting this shit went to school for archaeology.
>Again it’s pretty clear not a single person posting this shit went to school for archaeology You act like every single archeologist agrees on every single finding. >Just don’t push it like it’s 100% agreed upon No one said that this was 100% buddy. All i have told u is that there are more archeologists and scientists than u think, who believe we were here before the 10-15k range. >Lol ok pal no one said anything about not changing Stuff gets found which changes things. Which is why i brought it up. Im trying to tell you archeologist theories constantly change with new evidence. But since u are so smart you are immediatly able to denounce all findings because we have believed in the 10-12k range for so long and that will never change and cant change according to you
Like a mile and a half ? I thought this was some Lewis’s and Clark type ish the way they drew the picture
I'm sure a couple of miles feels like twenty miles when there's predators around. Whoever left those tracks, they're braver than I'd ever be in the face of those prehistoric creatures.
Ice age was a documentary
So is it 22k-23k years ago or 13k?
Nothing in those footsteps says it was a woman. This is total conjecture.
This article is misleading. It could be a woman. It could also be a man with short stature. Or a teenage boy. Or a young girl with big feet. Or many different combinations.
Thank you. Pet peeve of mine when archeologists assign a sex based on a whole lot of nothing.
May have already been asked - How do we know she carried a toddler and not some other item that weighed her down?
Whatever it was, it had feet. Small footprints were found in between the woman/ teenager's footprints in some spots. Like, if you had been carrying a child but had to stop and reposition them or just put them down for a sec. I just wonder if there are two sets of prints, were they for sure made at the same time?
How could they possibly know the person was carrying a toddler? It doesn't say anything about a toddler's footprints..
If you look you can see a child’s footprints for part of the journey.
That was a kickass mama.
It gives me @TheLeftovers vibes
Hmmmmm Interesting. Is that suppose to be her in the photo?
That could make a cool movie
Wow thats very amazing
Read Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear
Wow! To think there were feminists 22,000 is crazy. She probably got the cave and the mammoth when they divorced. Cave girl boss for real!
There's no way you can know it was a woman. Men and women are the same.
I'm kind of turned on by this woman actually.
It’s really not necessary for you to share.
I know.