Archaeologists found 22,000-year-old tracks showing we likely had vehicles way earlier than previously thought.

Discovery Of Ancient Travois Tracks

At White Sands National Park in New Mexico, archeologists uncovered parallel drag marks preserved in Pleistocene mudflats alongside human footprints in varying sizes. These 22,000-year-old traces are now believed to be the oldest physical evidence of human vehicle use anywhere in the world.

The Scene As A Prehistoric Caravan

Imagine the scene 22,000 years ago: a small group of travelers trudging through soft mud, kids walking beside adults, and belongings bundled in travois sleds. This vivid picture transforms our abstract understanding of ancient life into something deeply human and relatable.

Discovery Began in 2023

The tracks were discovered in 2023 by researchers examining ancient lakebed sediments at White Sands National Park. Among the footprints, they found long, grooved impressions—signs of an ancient tool dragged across soft mud, revealing new layers of innovation in prehistoric survival.

Published In 2025, Changing The Narrative

The findings were formally published in January 2025 in Quaternary Science Advances, led by Professor Matthew R Bennett of Bournemouth University. This paper not only verified the dating but reframed long-held views on early North American migration and human adaptability.

Meet The Brains Exploring It All

Before digging into the discovery, meet the puzzle solvers from across disciplines. Professor Matthew Bennett, a footprint expert from Bournemouth University, led the charge. Alongside him, paleoecologist Dr Sally Reynolds and archeologist Dr Daniel Odess helped connect the dots across time and terrain.

The Institutions Involved Were

Their research stretched across continents and specialties, linking Bournemouth University, Cornell, the University of Alaska, the US Geological Survey, and the National Park Service. Each brought a different lens—ecology, geology, archaeology—but one goal: To figure out what those long, dusty grooves in the mud really meant. 

A Hidden Trail Resurfaces

The runnels—long, shallow drag marks—first surfaced in dried lakebed mud in White Sands National Park. Natural erosion uncovered them just enough for researchers to notice. “They clip barefoot human tracks…suggesting the user dragged the travois over their own footprints,” said Professor Matthew Bennett.

Measuring The Mud’s Memory

Some drag marks stretched dozens of meters before vanishing under sediment. The team documented track overlap, direction, and depth. Bennett noted, that the drag-marks extend for dozens of meters and that they tell a story of the movement of resources at the edge of this former wetland.

Looking Beyond The Obvious

While some grooves could have been made by firewood, most didn’t fit that pattern. And there were no signs of animals. “Travois were often pulled by animals like horses,” Bennett told New Scientist, “but this does not fit all the cases we found”. 

Confident Steps Into Deep Time

Using radiocarbon dating and sediment analysis, the team confirmed the tracks’s astonishing age. “We’re fairly confident about the dates,” Bennett told New Scientist, reinforcing the idea that early humans moved through this terrain long before the ice sheets officially stepped aside. Now, what’s a travois?

What’s A Travois?

A travois is a V-or X-shaped hauling tool made from two poles lashed together, used to drag loads across land. Commonly linked to Indigenous Plains cultures, new findings suggest humans used similar setups over 20,000 years ago—long before the wheel came into play.

Construction And Design

A travois often included a platform or netting stretched between its poles to hold cargo. This smart design made it easy to drag loads across grass or snow—no wheels needed. It was simple, sturdy, and adaptable to whatever the terrain threw at it.

Human And Animal Power

Initially, humans pulled travois by hand, sometimes using shoulder harnesses for better efficiency. With the domestication of dogs and later the introduction of horses by Europeans, these animals became primary pullers, which increased the travois’s load capacity and range of use.

Versatile Applications

Beyond transporting goods, travois served multiple purposes. They were used as makeshift fences by tying several together to corral animals, as ladders when leaned against structures like tipis, and even as burial platforms for infants in certain cultures. 

Load Capacity And Efficiency

The travois enabled individuals to carry heavier loads than they could on their backs, especially over soft soils or snowy terrains where wheeled vehicles would struggle. Just like the carts we use in malls today, they ensures someone doesn't have to break their back carrying heavy.

Cultural Significance

For many Indigenous North American tribes, the travois hauled everything from belongings to entire dwellings, and sometimes even children tucked into bundles. Designs varied by region, with some made from buffalo ribs or shaped to glide more easily over snow or grassland.

To Prove It’s Truly A Travois Track, The Researchers Did An Experiment

To confirm their hypothesis, researchers constructed replica travois and dragged them across muddy terrains in Britain and Maine. The resulting patterns matched the ancient marks found at White Sands, supporting the theory that early humans used such devices for transportation.

Context Matters

Without the surrounding footprints, drag marks alone might’ve been ignored. It’s the context of who was there and how they moved that allows for a full interpretation. It might seem like a small detail, but just think about it; were it not for the footprints, would it spark any curiosity?

Children In Prehistoric Travel

The discovery of smaller footprints shows that children weren’t left behind when the adults went out searching. They were active participants in migrations, possibly helping carry light loads or simply keeping pace. You know, kids, monkey see, monkey do. For this reason, it isn’t farfetched to say they helped.

The Findings Proved Extended Use

Some travois drag marks stretched 165 feet or more, suggesting extended usage. These pulls across puddles indicate sustained effort, long travel days, and physical endurance, making them key data points in understanding prehistoric logistics.

Previous Migration Timelines Might Be Off

Travois tracks found at White Sands date back 22,000 years, placing human activity in North America much earlier than 13,000 years ago. These findings align with other evidence pointing to an earlier migration during the Last Glacial Maximum, possibly along coastal or ice-free corridor routes.

The Clovis Theory Is Under Fire

The Clovis-first model places human arrival in North America at 13,000 years ago. This specific discovery shows people were already migrating, innovating, and adapting thousands of years earlier, using tools like travois to move across challenging terrain.

How The Tracks Remained Perfectly Preserved

The dry lakebeds of White Sands create ideal preservation conditions due to rapid sediment coverage and minimal disturbance. The result is fossilized footprints and drag marks that have survived millennia to offer a rare glimpse into how early people moved through the environment.

Insights Into Daily Life

These prints provide more than data—they give us a snapshot of prehistoric life. The presence of adults and children traveling together, using technology to ease burdens, paints a picture of social cooperation, family-based migration, and practical problem-solving.

Comparison With Later Technologies

Think the wheel was humanity’s first big invention? Not even close. People were rigging up travois systems to haul their stuff across tough terrain nearly tens of thousands of years before the wheel rolled onto the scene around 3,500 BCE in Mesopotamia.

Can We Find Evidence Of The Travois?

Quick answer: No. Wooden tools like travois poles rot over time to leave almost no direct archeological trace. That’s why indirect evidence, like impressions in ancient mudflats, is vital to piecing together early human technology and mobility.

Is There Influence On Modern Understanding?

This finding underscores that “advanced” technology is often rooted in necessity, not convenience. Prehistoric humans didn’t wait for the wheel—they built what they needed with what they had. You know the saying necessity is the mother of invention, right? Here’s the proof.

Broader Implications For Archaeology

These tracks encourage archeologists to reconsider assumptions about prehistoric mobility and logistics. The use of technology in this context implies social planning and foresight, rather than purely subsistence-level survival, challenging long-held views of early human behavior.

Such Findings Encourage More Detailed Exploration

Now that drag-based transport evidence has been confirmed at White Sands, other researchers may re-examine previously overlooked trackways. Similar patterns may exist at sites once believed to show only footprints or natural erosion. It will make researchers more attentive to the minor details.

Collaboration With Indigenous Communities

The travois is well documented in Indigenous cultures, including Plains tribes who used dog- or horse-drawn versions for centuries. Partnering with Indigenous historians could add valuable cultural interpretation to this early form of the same tool.

Potential For New Discoveries

If White Sands holds evidence of travois use, other Pleistocene-era sites might as well. With new technologies like ground-penetrating radar and 3D imaging, archeologists are better equipped than ever to find similarly subtle traces elsewhere.

Travois Design Reflects Early Engineering

The travois’s construction shows a keen understanding of balance, friction, and weight distribution. These are core engineering principles that reveal how early humans intuitively designed tools to solve complex challenges long before formalized science or written blueprints came into existence.

Travois Use Indicates Organized Migration

These drag marks suggest that early humans moved deliberately, not randomly. The presence of transport tools like travois implies planning and group cohesion and these are key traits for survival during large-scale migration across vast, unfamiliar terrain.

Implications For Indigenous Narratives

Indigenous communities have been telling these stories for generations—about epic migrations and ingenious survival hacks. Now, archaeology is finally catching up. Discoveries like this give long-overlooked oral histories the spotlight they deserve. They blend ancestral wisdom with modern research in a way that’s long overdue.

Cultural Parallels Globally

Travois-like tools didn’t just pop up in the Americas—they showed up all over the world; Europe and Africa. Early humans everywhere seemed to share the same instinct: when faced with tough terrain, build something simple and smart to drag your stuff.

Impacts On Migration Modeling

Believe it or not, dragging sticks and gear across the ground could reshape computer models of ancient migration. Once you factor in low-tech tools like the travois, the old guesses about how fast people moved—and where they could go—start to shift in surprising ways.

Advances In Dating Techniques

Thanks to revolutionary radiocarbon dating and optically stimulated luminescence, researchers could confidently estimate the age of these prints. Without modern dating science, these travois marks might’ve seemed recent or unremarkable. Or even insignificant.

White Sands Is A Fossil Treasure Trove

White Sands has emerged as a groundbreaking site in paleoarchaeology. From fossilized footprints to these newly discovered drag marks, its soft gypsum sands have captured slices of life from thousands of years ago preserved by climate and perfect environmental conditions.

Importance Of Interdisciplinary Research

Such a breakthrough was made possible through collaboration across disciplines, including paleoanthropology, sedimentology, and experimental archaeology. Without this combined expertise, the subtle drag marks might have been dismissed as natural features or animal tracks.

Human Innovation Seems To Be A Constant

It turns out that our prehistoric ancestors were basically the original DIY pros. Long before wheels or pack animals, they figured out clever ways to haul stuff across rugged terrains using whatever was around—sticks, vines, you name it. That has and is certainly never going to change.

Shifting School Curricula

One day, kids might open their textbooks and learn the wheel wasn’t humanity’s first big transportation win. Thanks to discoveries like this, the travois could take its rightful place in the spotlight, showing up in lessons long before the wheel rolls in.

Possibility Of Earlier Tools

If travois existed 22,000 years ago, what else have we missed? This raises questions about even earlier, undocumented tools, perhaps rafts, snow sleds, or carrying harnesses, that left no trace but changed history. What if there’s more we’ll never find, but everything we are came from it?