The "ghost footprints" were found in the Salt Flats of a Utah desert. Due to their earthly composition, these tracks get their eerie name not because they are from an ethereal realm, but because they become visible only after it rains, and then disappear again after they dry out in the sun.
The strange impressions were discovered by researchers as they drove to another archaeological site at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. A thorough sweep of the surrounding area using ground-penetrating radar revealed at least 88 individual footprints belonging to a range of adults and children, possibly as young as 5 years old. The GPR technique uses radio waves to bounce off objects that are hidden.
The area was a vast wetlands at least 10,000 years ago. Researchers think the tracks could be as old as 12,000 years ago, when the last ice age ended.
The cultural resource manager at Hill Air Force Base said that the discovery of so many ancient footprints is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery. We found a lot more than we expected.
The discovery hasn't been published in a peer-reviewed journal because researchers are analyzing the footprints.
The children are playing in the sand.
The Great Salt Lake Desert is named after the Great Salt Lake, which is the largest saltwater lake in the western hemisphere. Changes in Earth's climate caused the ancient lake to dried up, leaving behind salts that were once dissolved in the water. Up until 10,000 years ago, the area was a large wetlands that humans used to occupy.
The conditions were perfect for the creation of ghost footprints.
Daron Duke, an archaeologist with Far Western Anthropological Research Group, a private firm that specializes in cultural resources management, said in the statement that people appeared to have been walking in shallow water, with the sand rapidly filling their prints behind them. There was a layer of mud under the sand that held the print in place. When the wetlands dried out, the footprints were filled in with salt to make them look like the surrounding landscape.
The ground returns to its normal color when the water is quickly absorbed into the surrounding soil. When the rain falls on top of the muddy footprints, the water gets trapped and creates patches of dark and wet soil.
Less than a mile away from where the tracks were found, a hunter-gatherer camp dating to 12,000 years ago was discovered. The earliest evidence of tobacco use in humans can be found in a pile of animal bones and charred tobacco seeds.
Some of the footprints have been collected by the researchers in order to figure out their age. According to the statement, researchers hope to be able to analyze small pieces of organic material that could have been trapped in the silt by someone.
The area is a hot spot for ancient human trackways. The oldest "unequivocal evidence" of humans in the Americas was found in New Mexico in the form of 60 footprints. GPR was used to discover these footprints.
Thomas Urban, an archaeologist at Cornell University who developed the GPR survey technique used at White Sands and more recently at the Hill Air Force Base, said that they have always wondered if other sites were out there. Yes, the answer to both questions.
The researchers say that these types of discoveries are important because they are direct evidence of human settlement in the area. There is a connection to seeing footprints. It's important to see them from a distant past.
It was originally published on Live Science
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