Rope made from twisted or braided plant fibers can be traced back tens of thousands of years. Preservation is rare, so most artifacts have been lost in the dust of time – but there are hints about rope production, including tools that may have been used to make them. The rope bridges of the Incas were impressive structures that could extend across greater distances than any masonry bridge built in history before that time.
Human footprints found in White Sands National Park, New Mexico, were associated with astonishingly ancient age dates in 2021. New research published in the October 5, 2023 issue of Science reports on two independent age dating techniques that corroborate the third technique. The data show that the footprints are between 23,000 and 21,000 years old. This will require fundamental changes in rewriting our history.
Around 13,000 years ago, Paleoindian hunters were making red ochre from iron-rich hematite collected from a quarry in the western foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Red ochre had an important role in Paleoindian societies, and is associated with many campsites, kill sites, graves, caches—and notably, found in rock art. Worldwide, the historical record of red ochre mines extends back tens of thousands of years.
