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

Metadata Updated: July 20, 2024

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 June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 20, 2024

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI EDI

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date June 1, 2023
Metadata Updated Date July 20, 2024
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
@Id http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/8084da2f064ab40442fbf7133affb881
Identifier USGS:6036950cd34eb12031174c77
Data Last Modified 20240710
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://datainventory.doi.gov/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 6c827fe6-d435-425f-a508-8f1ce0251ce5
Harvest Source Id 52bfcc16-6e15-478f-809a-b1bc76f1aeda
Harvest Source Title DOI EDI
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -106.45,32.8,-106.2,32.95
Publisher Hierarchy White House > U.S. Department of the Interior > U.S. Geological Survey
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash f5a780f12793030d2bcaa2366221cf02863de926266184bcb07b659455f6a827
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -106.45, 32.8, -106.45, 32.95, -106.2, 32.95, -106.2, 32.8, -106.45, 32.8}

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