Radiocarbon dating seems like solid science. It appeals as a kind of time machine, providing a clear peephole to peer into the past. However, a new debate over ancient human footprints from New Mexico shows one way that this supposed peephole can get all fogged up.

In 2002, Professor Michel Brunet of the University of Poitiers, France, described a tiny fossil ape skull nicknamed Toumaï as an upright-walking human ancestor.¹ This ancient skull and other possibly associated partial bones from Chad belong to the Sahelanthropus kind.

Droughts across north Texas dried the Paluxy River bed, famous for its dinosaur footprints. Ordinarily, the dinosaur tracks lie buried beneath water-covered mud, but dry conditions enabled workers to remove the mire that had long covered them at Dinosaur Valley State Park near Glen Rose.