氷河期人類の足跡　「偶然」発見　米ユタ州

【ロサンゼルスＡＦＰ＝時事】米西部ユタ州の砂漠で、氷河期の狩猟採集民のものとみられる足跡が「偶然」発見された。１万２０００年以上前の足跡は、北米大陸に渡って間もない頃の人類について新たな光を投げ掛けそうだ。（写真は、米ユタ州グレートソルトレーク砂漠の遺跡で発見された氷河期の狩猟採集民のものとみられる足跡）
　足跡が発見されたのはユタ州の干上がった川底だ。
　米極西部考古学研究グループのダロン・デューク氏と、コーネル大学のトーマス・アーバン氏は、先住民ショショーニが先史時代に残したたき火の痕跡を探すため、ユタ州のヒル空軍基地内を車で移動していた。
　２人はたまたま車の外を見た。
　「『足跡はどのように残るのだろうか』と話していたのです」とデューク氏。「すると彼（アーバン氏）が、『窓の外の、あのような感じじゃないか』と言ったのです」
　２人が発見したのは、はっきりと分かる大人と子どもの足跡で、計８８個あった。
　デューク氏は「人間のはだしの足跡でした。（中略）浅瀬の泥の層を歩いたようで（中略）足を引き上げたところに砂が入り込み、完全な形で残ったのです」と説明した。
　先住民ショショーニは、約１万３０００年前からこの地域に住み続けているとされ、これまでに石器やたばこを使っていた証拠、鳥の骨、たき火の跡などが見つかっている。
　「足跡は北米大陸の先住民のもので、彼らはここに住んでいた。そして、今でもここで暮らしている」とデューク氏は話した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/08/15-15:46）

Footprints laid down by Ice Age hunter-gatherers and recently discovered in a US desert are shedding new light on North America's earliest human inhabitants.
Dozens of fossilized prints found in dried-up riverbeds in the western state of Utah reveal more details about how the continent's original occupants lived more than 12,000 years ago -- just as the frozen planet was starting to thaw.
The fossils could have remained unnoticed if not for a chance glance out of a moving car as researchers Daron Duke and Thomas Urban drove through Hill Air Force Base chatting about footprints.
We were talking about, 'What would they look like?' Duke told AFP. And he said, 'Kind of like that out the window.'
What the men had found turned out to be 88 distinct prints left by a mixture of adults and children.
They vary between just looking like discolored patches on the ground and... little pop-ups, little pieces of dirt around them or on them. But they look like footprints, Duke said.
The discovery was followed by a painstaking few days of very careful digging -- with Duke sometimes lying on his belly -- to ensure that what they were looking at was as old as it appeared.
What I found was bare feet of people... that had stepped in what looks to be shallow water where there was a mud sub-layer, Duke explained.
The minute they pulled their foot out, the sand infilled that and has preserved it perfectly.
Duke, of the Nevada-based Far Western Anthropological Research Group, had been in the area looking for evidence of prehistoric campfires built by the Shoshone, a people whose descendants still live in the western United States.
He had brought Urban over from Cornell University because of his expertise in uncovering evidence of ancient humans -- including the discovery of human tracks in New Mexico's White Sands National Park that are thought to be up to 23,000 years old.
- 'Awestruck' -
The new fossils add to a wealth of other finds from the area -- including stone tools, evidence of tobacco use, bird bones and campfire remains -- that are starting to provide a more complete record of the Shoshone and their continuous presence in the region beginning 13,000 years ago.
These are the resident Indigenous people of North America; this is where they lived, and this is where they still live today, Duke said.
For him personally, finding the footprints has been a professional high point.
Once I... realized I was digging a human footprint, I was seeing toes, I was seeing the thing in immaculate condition... I was just kind of awestruck by it, he said.
Nothing beats the sense of discovery and awe that maybe as an archaeologist, you are actually chasing your whole career.
And sharing the discovery with the distant descendants of the people who made the prints was immensely rewarding, Duke said.
You realize the same thing is happening -- what the connection is to such a distant past and to something so human, I think it gets to everybody in one way or another eventually.