Surprises at an 8,200-year-old campsite in America

A US soldier has unearthed the remains of a prehistoric camp on an air force base in New Mexico, which the first Americans may have occupied 8,200 years ago.

Members of the 49th Civil Engineer Squadron (CES) made the discovery with a team of geologists near a road cut on Holloman Air Force Base, 260km southeast of Albuquerque. The base is located next to White Sands National Park , famous for its ivory-colored gypsum sand dunes and home to the oldest known human footprints in North America, created 23,000 years ago .

Matthew Cuba, cultural resources manager for the 49th Civil Engineer Squadron, brushes sand from the remains of a Paleo-Archaic hearth at Holloman Air Force Base, New Mexico. (Photo: Pilot Isaiah Pedrazzini)

The dunes of White Sand National Park were formed at least 1,000 years after the air base's archaeological site and may have helped preserve prehistoric artifacts there.

Buried by white sand dunes?

CES No. 49 cultural resources manager Matthew Cuba, who participated in the excavation, said: 'The formation of white sand dunes unintentionally buried the site, with wind-blown silt protecting it. exquisite archaeological remains'.

Excavations at this site, named Gomolak Overlook , have yielded various artifacts suggesting that the site may have been a seasonal camping site for the "Paleo-Archaic" people of the area today. now New Mexico.

According to the U.S. National Park Service, ancient peoples were descendants of the first people to reach the Americas and were among the first cultures in the New World to grow and domesticate plants.

The Cuban archaeologist said: 'This site marks an important moment in shedding light on the history of the area and its first inhabitants.'

Among the remains hidden several feet below ground, Cuba and his colleagues found evidence that early settlers lit fires and burned mesquite — a thorny shrub from the family Beans (Fabaceae) are native to semi-arid regions of the American Southwest and Mexico. According to the statement, this campsite is one of 400 archaeological discoveries made within the boundaries of Holloman Air Force Base.

The broader Tularosa Basin, which stretches across 16,800 square kilometers of southwestern New Mexico, is home to some of the oldest archaeological sites in the Americas. Excavations over the past 10 years have discovered 11,000-year-old fossilized human footprints tracking a giant sloth, 10,000-year-old footprints of a woman and a toddler, as well as Evidence shows Ice Age children playing in mud puddles.