Nova, Ice Age Footprints

PBS Western Reserve (WNEO 45.1 / WEAO 49.1):

Wednesday, May 25, at 9 PM

Thursday, May 26, at 2 AM

Tuesday, May 31, at 5 PM

Thousands of prehistoric footprints left by Ice Age humans and animals stretch for miles across the blinding white surfaces of New Mexico’s White Sands National Park. The phenomenal collection of prints preserves a unique series of snapshots of life and behavior, capturing moments when humans crossed paths with extinct Ice Age beasts, including enormous ground sloths and mammoths. Frozen in time, these intimate traces of human and animal activity represent evidence unknowable from any other type of archeological find. Not only do the tracks reveal remarkable details about life in the Ice Age, but radiocarbon dating of the footprints provides important new evidence about the people of the Americas.