Those Who Walked Before: Fossil Footprints at White Sands

One of the most important archaeological discoveries of the last century, which rocked the field of archaeology and fundamentally shifted our collective knowledge of human occupation in the Americas.

On a warm winter day in 2005, while mending fences in the backcountry of White Sands National Park, David F. Bustos, the park’s biologist turned resource-program manager, spotted his first Ice Age human footprint. He initially ignored it as a print made from a modern cowboy boot, but it nagged h...