Footprints found on British Columbia's Calvert Island could be oldest in North America

June 20, 2015

The footprints of family members gathered around a hearth fire thousands of years ago on the central coast of B.C. may be the oldest ever found in North America.

The impressions left by the feet of two adults and a child in the soft clay of Calvert Island appear to be 13,200 years old, which would make them older than any others ever found on the continent, announced the Hakai Institute, a research organization that helped support the research.

"It was really quite exciting because with every brush of the trowel, you'd see toes appearing, or a heel or the arch of a foot," recalled University of Victoria archeologist Duncan McLaren, as he described the discovery to CBC's All Points West. "The hair on the back of our necks was standing up."

McLaren says the find could provide key evidence about how the continent's first inhabitants migrated south. Older archeological remains have been found in both north of B.C., in Alaska, and south of B.C. in Oregon. It wasn't clear whether people moved from Alaska to Oregon by travelling inland on foot near the Rockies or along the coast by boat. But the new discovery favours the water route.

"There's no way to get to Calvert Island other than watercraft, and that applies to 13,000 years ago as it does today," McLaren said.

The team plans to do carbon dating on the new footprints to ensure they can duplicate their results. They are also dating the ash from the hearth and examining it under the microscope.

[NOTE: The "indigenous Native American" dialogue is continually being proven false! We were here first!]