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Data release for Evidence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum

Metadata Updated: October 30, 2025

Archaeologists and researchers in allied fields have long sought to understand human colonization of North America. When, how, and from where did people migrate, and what were the consequences of their arrival for the established fauna and landscape are enduring questions. Here, we present evidence from excavated surfaces of in situ human footprints from White Sands National Park (New Mexico, USA), where multiple human footprints are stratigraphically constrained and bracketed by seed layers that yield calibrated 14C ages between ~23 and 21 ka. These findings confirm the presence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum, adding evidence to the antiquity of human colonization of the Americas and providing a temporal range extension for the coexistence of early inhabitants and Pleistocene megafauna.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 30, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 14, 2025
Metadata Updated Date October 30, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-6036950cd34eb12031174c77
Data Last Modified 2024-07-10T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 742520c7-e22f-493a-bb62-dae76e890fa0
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -106.4500, 32.8000, -106.2000, 32.9500
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash 7f7336b6a4326b5b5aab28c9ed7a86f4942c3437a51a8ce109d7d52fd48be83b
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -106.4500, 32.8000, -106.4500, 32.9500, -106.2000, 32.9500, -106.2000, 32.8000, -106.4500, 32.8000}

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