Produced by: Manoj Kumar
Researchers found 20,000-year-old drag marks in New Mexico, suggesting early North Americans used wooden sleds to transport goods—possibly even people—long before the wheel.
At White Sands, ancient footprints were discovered alongside sled-like grooves. These marks hint at the use of a travois, a wooden frame dragged across the ground.
If confirmed, these tracks could be the earliest evidence of human transport in North America, proving our ancestors had practical hauling methods before the wheel was invented.
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Indigenous experts linked the marks to travois technology, used by Native groups for centuries. These sleds carried everything from houses to children before horses arrived.
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Footprints next to the drag marks suggest adults pulled the sleds while children walked alongside—a prehistoric version of hauling kids in a shopping cart, researchers joked.
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The find suggests early North Americans had sophisticated transport methods, helping them migrate across vast landscapes with their belongings thousands of years ago.
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Since wood rots, no ancient travois has ever been found. These drag marks are the first physical proof of how prehistoric people moved heavy loads before the invention of wheels.
Archaeologists believed early humans only carried goods by hand, but this discovery rewrites history—showing that load-bearing tech existed millennia earlier than thought.
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Before carts or animals, humans found ways to lighten their load. This discovery proves our ancestors weren’t just nomads—they were problem solvers and engineers.
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