White Sands20 footprint layers span about 1,800 years.
A Science Advances record shows people returning during a severe drought 23,200 years ago.
Pollen and leaf waxes in the sediment show Lake Otero shrinking as conifers gave way to oak and sagebrush.
The researchers ask whether the shrinking lake drew people by concentrating animals and plants.
How each outlet framed it
- Phys.org
- reframes the footprints as a window on the climate of the time, dating 20 horizons across about 1,800 years
Sources: Phys.org