[Rockhounds] A Human Toddler and a Mammoth Crossed Paths in Ancient New Mexico, Footprints Suggest

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Someone—maybe an adolescent, maybe someone older—rushed across the edge of
Lake Otero, slipping as they walked but moving steadily ahead. Evidence
suggests this person was carrying a child approximately 3 years old,
setting the child down for just a moment in at least three separate places
along the journey before continuing on.

While this person was gone, an enormous proboscidean—a Columbian mammoth or
a mastodon—lumbered across that path, stepping on a couple of the
footprints. In fact, potentially three proboscideans moved across that
landscape, cutting across the tracks left by the human.

Time is hard to determine, but at another point, a giant ground sloth
happened to be making its way near Lake Otero as well. Its tracks indicate
a decided awareness of the human—a change in behavior—where it may have
lifted up on two feet to smell the air, ascertain its own safety, and
determine what lay ahead, before quickly changing direction and moving away.

The same person (or perhaps a different person) walked back next to the
initial trackway at some point later on, but the footprints indicate they
were no longer carrying something. If the same person were returning from
whence they came, perhaps the child was left behind.

These scenes are described in a remarkable paper
<https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379120305722>
published
earlier this month in Quaternary Science Reviews, and they interpret
actions taken by humans and other animals that lived in what is now New
Mexico at least 10,000 years ago. Today, that area is White Sands National
Park.

https://gizmodo.com/a-human-toddler-and-a-mammoth-crossed-paths-in-ancient-1845463474