On Thursday, December 15, 2022, Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s “Third Thursday Food for Thought” program will feature “Tracking the First Americans across the White Sands” presentation by archaeologist Vance Holliday, Ph.D.

This free Zoom online presentation will be held from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. (ARIZONA/Mountain Standard Time).

The question of when people first arrived in the Americas, based on scientific evidence, has been argued for decades and even centuries. For many years the conventional answer was about 13,000 years ago with the appearance of people who made distinctive artifacts called Clovis points (named for a famous archaeological site near Clovis, New Mexico). Other sites have been proposed as being older than Clovis. A few early occupations ca. 14,000 to ca. 16,000 years old were about the oldest well-documented sites accepted by most (but not all) archaeologists. The White Sands locality changed that for many archaeologists. The site provides convincing evidence that humans were in what is now southern New Mexico between 23,000 and 21,000 years ago. That is the oldest obvious case we have. Human activity in the form of footprints is quite clear and numerous and the dating is solid. At other sites considered older than Clovis, often there are debates over the age or presence of humans, which is usually based on interpretations of broken rocks or bones as tools. The time range for the tracks at White Sands is significant because it puts people in the Americas during the last Ice Age, which means they were likely here sooner, before the last Ice Age covered essentially all of Canada from coast to coast maybe 25,000+ years ago.

To register go to https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_WaNXdpOkRqarLzJO17MXgQ. For more information contact Old Pueblo at info@oldpueblo.org or 520-798-1201.