These Tracks Reveal Evidence of 22,000-Year-Old Wheelbarrows—But Without the Wheels

Roughly 22,000 years ago, humans pulled a primitive vehicle across the sand in present-day New Mexico, likely to transport heavy goods from place to place. Sediment from a lake eventually covered up their footprints and the vehicle’s drag marks, preserving them for millennia.

Now, archaeologists have discovered these long-hidden tracks, which represent some of the earliest evidence of transport technology, according to a recent study published in the journal Quaternary Science Advances.

Researchers discovered the footprints and drag marks at White Sands National Park, a 145,000-acre protected swath of gypsum dunes in southern New Mexico. They think the drag marks were made by a travois, which is like a “wheelbarrow without the wheel,” co-author Matthew Bennett, an archaeologist at the University of Bournemouth in England, tells New Scientist’s Michael Le Page.

Over the past five years, they’ve discovered travois tracks measuring up to 165 feet long at various places throughout the park.

“We know that our earliest ancestors must have used some form of transport to carry their possessions as they migrated around the world, but evidence in the form of wooden vehicles has rotted away,” Bennett says in a statement. “These drag marks give us the first indication of how they moved heavy and bulky loads around before wheeled vehicles existed.”

Some of the tracks feature two parallel lines, which were likely made by two long, slender pieces of wood attached together to form an X. Humans likely stood in front of the intersection point, holding a piece of wood in each hand down by their sides. The back ends of the X dragged on the ground.

Meanwhile, other tracks feature only a single line. The researchers think this represents a different kind of travois, which was made of two wooden sticks formed into the shape of a narrow, open-ended triangle. Again, humans held a piece of wood in each hand, but the two poles were then joined together at a point in the back.

To confirm that the drag marks were made by a travois, researchers created their own versions of the primitive vehicles, then pulled them across mudflats in the United Kingdom and the United States. These replica tracks matched those found within the national park.

Many of the drag marks intersect with tracks of human footprints, likely left behind by the people pulling the travois. In some cases, additional sets of footprints indicate that others were walking nearby. Some of those accompanying footprints appear to have belonged to children.

“If you’re a parent you’ve probably tried, at some point, to navigate the supermarket with a trolley and at least one child in tow,” write Bennett and co-author Sally Reynolds, a paleontologist at Bournemouth University, in the Conversation. “Our new study suggests there was an ancient equivalent.”

Elsewhere around the world, travois were often pulled by dogs or horses. But researchers have not discovered any evidence of animals near the travois marks in New Mexico.

These and other recent discoveries are upending the long-held theory that humans arrived in the Americas some 15,000 years ago, after the ice sheets covering the continent began retreating.

Stone tools found in central Mexico indicate humans may have settled in the Americas as early as 33,000 years ago. In addition to the 22,000-year-old drag marks, archaeologists have also uncovered footprints in White Sands National Park that may date back 23,000 years.

“Every discovery at White Sands adds to our understanding of the lives of the first people to settle in the Americas,” says Reynolds in the statement. “These people were the first migrants to travel to North America, and understanding more about how they moved around is vital to telling their story.”

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.