The formal scientific engagement with the White Sands footprints began with David Bustos, the resource program manager at White Sands National Monument (it became a National Park in 2019).

Bustos had been working at White Sands for years and was deeply familiar with the landscape and its paleontological and geological features.

He began noticing what appeared to be trackways in the exposed lakebed sediments — impressions that suggested animal and possibly human passage across the ancient surface.

The site was remote enough and the exposures sufficiently limited that systematic investigation took time to develop.

Bustos connected with researchers from the United States Geological Survey and from universities in the United States and United Kingdom, assembling a team capable of analyzing what the exposures might contain.

Among those researchers was Matthew Bennett of Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom, a specialist in fossil footprint analysis with extensive experience in African sites preserving ancient hominin trackways.