Recently discovered footprints found on an island off Canada’s West Coast are now confirmed to be the oldest ever found in North America.
According to researchers from the the Hakai Institute and the University of Victoria, the footprints discovered on Calvert Island during excavation that began in 2014 date back about 13,000 years.
The researchers’ study was published Wednesday in the PLOS One scientific journal.
The Calvert Island, B.C. dig site. (Grant Callegari, Hakai Institute)
A total of 29 foot prints were found and appear to be those of two adults and a child.
“This provides evidence that people were inhabiting the region at the end of the last ice age,” says the study’s lead author, Duncan McLaren, adding that the discovery supports “the growing body of evidence that people who used watercraft were able to thrive on the Pacific Coast of Canada” during that period..
“As this island would have been accessible by watercraft 13,000 years ago,” McLaren says. “it implies that the people who left the footprints were seafarers who used boats to get around, ganther and hunt for food and live and explore the islands.
The study says the discovery strengthens the hypothesis that the first humans who arrived in North America migrated from Asia via an ice-free land corridor along the coast before finally coming to what is now British Columbia.
With files from CBC, CTV, New York Times, Postmedia, Toronto Star
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