The Follow-Up Evidence

The scientific team that had published the original 2021 findings was aware of the reservoir effect concern and was already working to address it.

In 2023, they published a follow-up paper in the journal Science that presented independent dating evidence using materials not susceptible to the aquatic reservoir effect.

The 2023 study used two independent approaches.

The first was the dating of conifer pollen extracted from the same sediment layers that contained the footprints.

Pollen from terrestrial plants — plants that draw their carbon from the atmosphere rather than from lake water — is not subject to the aquatic reservoir effect.