A group of friends go down to a lake. The older kids lead the way, their feet sinking into soft mud.

Across the water, a family of mammoths stop to drink. The teenagers find signs of a giant slothAt White Sands, footprints have been found inside the paw prints of this enormous prehistoric animal. Palaeontologist Andrew Milner says: "There's no evidence of hunting here... Maybe ground sloths were fun to harass? Who knows.". Curious, excited and a little hungry, they decide to follow its tracks.

This glimpse into our prehistoric past is possible because of fossilised footprints, discovered at White Sands National Park in the United States.

Radiocarbon datingDecaying radiocarbon in organic matter is used by archaeologists to date artefacts. In this case, scientists dated seeds found with the footprint fossils. shows these tracks were made at the height of the last Ice AgeA long period of time in which global temperatures are extremely cold., around 22,500 years ago.

This fact is a "gamechanger", says researcher Spencer Lucas. It means humans were in America much earlier than thought. Long before the ancient Clovis cultureIn the 1930s, stone tools were discovered near Clovis, New Mexico. In 2014, DNA testing at a burial site in Montana showed the Clovis people were closely related to modern Native Americans. appeared, 13,000 years ago.

PaleobiologistA scientist that studies the fossilised remains of dead biological life. Kevin Hatala says footprints tell "compelling" stories. We can see our ancestors playing, hunting and gathering food.

Nearby, there is the longest fossilised human trackway, a woman walking 1.5km in a straight line. Her steps show she was walking fast and carrying a baby, but where she was going is lost to deep timeA term often used to refer to the millions of years before recorded history..

Prehistory spans over 3.3 million years, from the first stone toolsIn Kenya, massive hammers and anvils have been found that predate the earliest human, suggesting our non-human ancestors may have been more sophisticated than was thought. to the invention of writing. The first people to look like modern humans appeared around 130,000 years ago.

But when did they begin to think like us?

Archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood says it may start with "finely polished" stone weapons, over 70,000 years old, found in South Africa. These were more than tools.

Around 40,000 years ago, something caused a "dawn of creativity", according to anthropologistSomeone who studies human beings and societies. The word "anthropology" comes from the Greek "anthropos", meaning "human". It developed as a subject in Europe in the 19th century, although some regard the Arab historian Ibn Khaldun as the first anthropologist. Richard Klein. Digs in Turkey have unearthed strings of beads and shell ornaments. And in Germany, researchers found flutesResearchers speculate these instruments may have been used for rituals, recreation or hunting. Music may have been one of the creative advantages modern humans had over Neanderthals, who began to die out around this time. made from bird bone. They are the world's oldest musical instruments.

And humans began to draw. Last year, an eight-mile cave wall was discovered in the Amazonian rainforest, covered in prehistoric art. The "natural" and "well-made" images of animals is hailed as "the Sistine Chapel of the ancients".

In 1994, speleologistsScientists who study the geology, biology and archaeology of caves. stumbled upon another wonder of prehistory. The Chauvet CaveThe cave has been sealed off to prevent damage to the paintings. In 2015, a nearly full-scale replica of the cave was opened to the public, where the art and ambience has been faithfully reproduced. in southern France contains hundreds of life-like paintings of animals. Archaeologist Paul Pettitt says these are a "shadowy glimpse" of our early attempts to "communicate meaning".

Researcher Marc Azema thinks they reveal something even more astonishing. When lit by firelight, a rhino with eight horns and several backs appears to move. The illusion, Azema says, is the "beginning of cinema".

Psychologist Joshua Conrad Jackson suspects the modern mind "scarcely resembles ancient human psychology". The diversity of modern languages, religions and cultures mean we have little in common with the painters of Chauvet or the teenagers at White Sands.

Yes: Our genes are virtually identical. Our emotions are the same. Prehistoric humans gathered together to play music and make art. Thousands of years later, we are still the species that love to sit around a fire and share a good story.

No: The agricultural, scientific and industrial revolutions transformed humanity beyond recognition. Everything, from a loaf of bread to the Internet, is second nature to us but would make no sense to a Neolithic hunter-gatherer.

Or... We may have changed but there will always be fundamentals that make us human - and this story should remind us of that. It proves that however different we are from each other today, we still have much in common.