Newly found footprints might indicate humans arrived in the Americas earlier than thought. What steps will be taken to corroborate these findings and what 'current knowledge' does it impact?

by asphias

First off thank you for your time, i always enjoy reading and learning here. thank you!

Today's pop science story is the new finding of ancient footsteps in new mexico which appear to be older than we expected.

From my understanding, archeologist/historians are still waiting for further evidence that these footsteps are indeed as old as we think they are. What steps are currently being taken to verify this find? are they still doing e.g. radiocarbon analysis?

Second, if this finding indeed appears to be real, how does this impact current theories? Would we need to find a new migration path for these earlier settlers? Does this invalidate other theories about how humans entered america?

BaffledPlato

You might get some good answers here, but you also might want to keep an eye on AskHistorians' sister sub AskAnthropology. There has already been some discussion about this. For example:

Does new evidence from New Mexico conclusively prove that humans reached the Americas about five thousand years earlier than previous estimates?

Here's another that looks at the question from the point of view of indigenous people. There are no answers as of when I posted this, but this one could be interesting:

To what extent did/do any of the indigenous cultures in the americas know when people first arrived in the americas (via their traditional knowledge)?