A group of White Sands Missile Range area ranchers were treated to a visit of an archaeological site on the range May 7 during the annual Ranchers Day event to thank them for their cooperation.
About 15 ranchers were treated to a visit of the fossilized footprints site on the range and got a closer look at several footprints to include human and animal prints. Ranchers living within the vicinity of WSMR are occasionally called on to evacuate the area for missile testing through an agreement with the range. The ranchers’ cooperation is critical to the Army’s mission on the range where vast areas of vacant land are a requirement.
WSMR Commander Brig. Gen. George Turner welcomed the ranchers to the site and thanked them for coming out for the event.
“The theme for today is past, present and future,” Turner said. “Our past, present and future is based on our relationship with ranchers. We truly appreciate you. We cannot be successful without you, and we want to continue this relationship.”
Michael Stowe, archaeologist and Cultural Resource Program Manager at White Sands Missile Range, and Fabiola Silva, an archaeologist at WSMR, led the ranchers to the footprints.
“You are at a spectacular site,” Stowe said.
Stowe said they found this site in 2017 and the trackways that are here are those of giant animals like woolly mammoth and mastodons. There is also giant sloth, camel, saber tooth tiger and other animals to include human trackways.
According to Stowe, the prints could be approximately 23,000 years old, revealing that humans may have inhabited North America earlier than previously believed by about 10,000 years.
“I think the public interface is really important,” Stowe said of the visit. “The interest that people show and the job that we do every day here at WSMR is really important to support the Army mission while protecting cultural resources on post.”
Don Swearingen, a rancher, who lives just five miles from the site, said the visit was amazing.
“We love doing this. I wish we could come out more than just once a year,” Swearingen said. “We find this place absolutely phenomenal and fascinating.”
He said that when people don’t have a background in understanding all this, they could be walking over archeological sites like this one on their own land without knowing.
After lunch, the ranchers visited the Climatic Chambers and got to experience extremes in weather, part of the testing process that exists at WSMR.
Bobbylee Jaramillo, a climate engineer at WSMR, gave the group a tour of the facilities and talked about how they are used in testing.
Dawn Weaver, one of the ranchers, said she found the event remarkably interesting.
“I really enjoyed stopping to see the footprints of the mastodons, the camels, the human foot and the giant sloth,” Weaver said. “It was really cool because if I was just walking through there, I would be oblivious to what is there but once they pointed it out, we could see it.”
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