Archaeologists have discovered evidence of ancient transport technology in the Americas, suggesting that early North Americans used travois-like sleds for transport nearly 22,000 years ago.
New findings by Bournemouth University researchers Matthew Robert Bennett, a Professor of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, and Sally Christine Reynolds, an Associate Professor in Hominin Palaeoecology, identifies the use of simple handcarts, possessing no wheels, that were employed during the late Ice Age near modern day White Sands, New Mexico.
The adoption of such a device significantly predates the first known use of the wheel, which is believed to have occured in Mesopotamia 5,000 years ago.
Ancient FootPrints at White Sands
In 2009, ancient fossilized human footprints were discovered at White Sands. However, it was not until revelations that came with the 2021 radiocarbon dating of seeds found in the sediment that controversy erupted. Those results dated the footprints to 23,000 years ago, pushing the arrival of humans in the Americas back several thousands of years.
The footprints sit at the bottom of a dry lake bed, reminders of an ancient time when New Mexico was not a desert, but had been covered in wetlands. The fossilized footprints are referred to as ichnofossils or “trace fossils,” meaning they retain evidence of ancient life but do not preserve an organism.
Critics of the find noted that the Ruppia cirrhosa (Ruppia) seeds used in the dating come from a plant that grows in brackish hard water, allowing it to intake carbon during photosynthesis, which can generate misleading radiocarbon results. Since 2021, additional dating techniques helped to conclusively determine the age of the ichnofossil footprints.
Fossil Evidence of Ancient Transport Technology
“The footprints tell stories, written in mud, of how people lived, hunted, and survived in this land,” wrote Bennett and Reynolds in a recent piece at The Conversation detailing the team’s work.
“Footprints connect people to the past in a way that a stone tool or archaeological artifact never can,” they write, adding that traditional archaeology focuses mainly on stone tools.
“Most people today have never made a stone tool but almost all of us will have left a footprint at some time, even if it is only on the floor of the bathroom,” the authors write.
While our modern metal shopping carts can occasionally be found abandonned and rusting away in waterways and overgrown lots, ancient transport technology the likes of which early North Americans used at White Sands would have been constructed from wood. A readily available resource to ancient humans, organic materials like wood also decomposes over time, rarely leaving a trace of its existence after such long periods.
Still, the team suspected that some form of ancient transport technology must have existed, as it would have been a necessity as ancient humans migrated throughout the Americas, carrying food, clothing, and other valuable items with them.
“Everyone has stuff to transport,” the pair wrote at The Conversation.
Experimenting with Ancient Transport Technology
Taking their theory with them to White Sands, Bennett and Reynolds discovered what appeared to be drag marks near the trace fossil footprints. In some instances, only one trace was found, while parallel tracks were identified in others. The drag marks extend for dozens of meters before being obscured by overlying sediment.
The markings, according to Bennett and Reynolds, likely points to the use of what is called a travois, which is a simple sled crafted from wooden poles, representing what they call “one of the simplest prehistoric vehicles.”
Accompanied by human footprints, the emerging picture seems to suggest that the ancient carriers dragged this form of transport technology behind them at White Sands. Adding further weight to the discovery, the researchers note that Indigenous cultures of the Great Plains carried on the tradition of using travois-like sleds in this manner.
The pair orchestrated a series of experiments to test their travois hypothesis, constructing simple sleds from different combinations of poles and dragging them through muddy fields in Dorset, United Kingdom, and in Maine in the U.S. Modern testing replicated the ancient pole trackways seen amid ancient footprints preserved at White Sands. The archeologists also consulted Indigenous groups local to White Sands, who concurred with the travois hypothesis upon examining the fossils.
Old Ways Mirrored in Modern Times
Recorded instances of America’s Indigenous populations using such devices generally involved animals like dogs or horses pulling the carts. Of course, with the accompanying human footprints, the newly identified Ice Age use of this technology obviously points to the fact they were carried by humans.
Small footprints visible alongside the drag marks also indicate the likelihood that the individuals pulling the sleds had children walking alongside them. This possibly indicates that ancient use of the travois might have helped early Americans move between camps, or had been used for transporting meat from hunting sites.
Bennett, Reynolds, and their colleagues’ new paper, “The ichnology of White Sands (New Mexico): Linear traces and human footprints, evidence of transport technology?,” appeared in Quaternary Science Advances.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at [email protected], and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.
link