An extraordinary discovery in White Sands National Park, New Mexico, is revolutionizing the understanding of ancient human history. Among the famous Ice Age footprints preserved in the park’s sands, a team of researchers led by geographic scientist Matthew Bennett and paleontologist Sally Reynolds of Bournemouth University (UK) has identified traces of travois – rudimentary wheelless means of transportation used to drag heavy loads. The surprising dating of these traces, which are about 22,000 years old, predates previous assumptions about the origin of human land transport by more than 16,000 years. According to reconstructions, travois consisted of long sticks joined to a basket or net, a kind of wheelless wheelbarrow. By pulling the handle of the basket attached to the poles, a person could slide heavy objects across the sand.
The study, published in the scientific journal Quaternary Science Advances, ruled out the tracks being traceable to animals or natural phenomena. Scholars speculate that the travois were used to transport food, wood or children, as suggested by the small footprints parallel to the ruts – footprints that at one point break off, perhaps indicating the load being carried.
The site also has great cultural value for many indigenous communities involved in the study process. Some of them recognized in the travois a familiar element, present in their oral traditions. As reported by Sfgate, one of the study’s authors, Daniel Odess, commented, “Most of the natives I’ve talked to are not at all surprised at how old these furrows are. The archaeologists are, but the natives already know. That means these people’s ancestors were the ones who saw mammoths and giant sloths roaming the landscape-which is really nice.”
