Researchers find 13,000-year-old footprints on Canadian coast

Courtesy: Hakai Institute, Calvert Island

Along the shore of Calvert Island in Canada, researchers have discovered what is believed to be the earliest human footprints ever found in North America.

The team of researchers published their findings in Wednesday’s ‘Plos-One” Journal, revealing the details of a series of excavations between 2014 and 2016. 

During this time, they found a total of 29 footprints. Over the last three years, the team was able to directly carbon date the prints, dating them back to around 13,000 years ago.

Duncan McLaren, an anthropologist at the Hakai Institute and University of Victoria in British Columbia, said in an interview that the find “provides evidence that people were inhabiting the region at the end of the last ice age.”

Based on the size of the prints, they were able to determine they likely belonged to two adults and one child walking barefoot on clay. 

The discovery adds to evidence humans once crossed Asia to north American along the Pacific coast of Canada. Before this, the earliest human footprint found in North America was about 5,000 years old. 

The island today is dense with forests and can only be reached by boat.