(Keeping off the current dire threat to the country and what it stands for…..

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Thirteen thousand years ago, a woman made her way across mudflats with a small child whom she sometimes carried in her arms. Nothing of her remains – except her footprints: stretching for almost a mile across the White Sands National Park in New Mexico.  They have been confirmed as the longest set of fossilised human prints ever discovered.

Analysis of the prints reveals that on her outward journey, the woman walked fast with the child; sometimes she slipped on what may have been wet ground. On her return, a few hours later, she walked steadily – and was alone. At various points, a giant sloth, a mammoth and a sabre-toothed cat crossed their path. The first reared up on its hind legs, perhaps to catch their scent, before turning and making off. The mammoth carried on, without deviating. “There’s a boundary in science between pure evidence and poetry and we’re on that boundary,” said Prof Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University; “but everything that we said in the story is evidenced in some shape.”.  (The Week 31 October 2020)

My comment: It must have been terrifying living in close proximity to mammoths and  sabre-tooth cats ( for “cats” read “tigers”!).  And life must have been so uncomfortable.  On the other hand, there were fewer humans around, and those who were there did not have guns.   There was food and clean water for the taking – and in those days you didn’t know any better, anyway.  Might not have been so bad.