Could the World’s Oldest Footwear Be 100,000 Years Old? A Trail to South Africa Unveiled
Paths trodden by humans, possibly over 100,000 years ago, have been discovered by scientists in the Republic of South Africa. However, our ancestors did not walk barefoot. They wore footwear. They were likely sandals.
Such a find from such an early prehistoric period is extremely rare. It is still not entirely clear when our ancestors began to wear any form of footwear. There is virtually no chance of discovering the oldest shoes because they were made of organic materials, likely leather and plant fibers. Therefore, they quickly decomposed. They are only known on a mass scale from the medieval period through city excavations.
Ichnology to the aid of archaeology
Ichnology is a branch of paleozoology that deals with the study of fossilized traces of extinct animals. Scientists in South Africa applied the same methodology to analyze the discovered human footprints from this country. They were found in the Garden Route National Park, the Goukamma Reserve, and the Kleinkrantz area in South Africa along the coast.
However, scientists were surprised this time. The imprint was clearly human, but they could not see toes. So, the person was not walking barefoot. They concluded that the feet must have been shod. They hypothesized some type of sandals.
To better understand what they were dealing with, they reconstructed the presumed footwear based on a thorough inquiry. They had studied San sandals from the Kalahari Desert, analyzed museum specimens, examined footwear depictions in San rock art, and explored the oldest existing footwear samples. After conducting several experiments on beaches, they concluded that the prehistoric footprints were left by someone wearing sandals with a hard sole.
Dating the footwear imprints
Scientists faced a serious challenge in determining the age of the imprints. Typically, archaeologists use radiocarbon dating to determine the age of artifacts. However, this time, they were dealing not with an object but with its presumed footprint. Based on various other prints from the nearby area, they estimated the age of those belonging to the shod individual to be from approximately 70,000 to over 130,000 years.
If this determination could be confirmed, these would be the oldest known shod footprints in the world. Only four archaeological sites with similar finds have been known. Footprints on one of them may have been left by Neanderthals.
“Although the evidence is not conclusive, we are excited about our discoveries. They support the view that South Africa is a region where human cognitive abilities and practical skills developed a long time ago,” writes one of the study’s authors, Charles Helm from the African Centre for Coastal Palaeoscience at Nelson Mandela University.
The oldest sandals in the world
The oldest sandals discovered so far are about 10,000 years old. They were found in Fort Rock, Oregon, USA, made from bark and other plant materials. They likely survived because they were covered by volcanic ash, attributed to the Mazama volcano, many thousands of years ago. In the same location, numerous sandals were found in various conditions. Some belonged to children, and some were heavily worn and likely discarded. The oldest complete footwear in the USA is also dated to around 7,500 years ago.
In Europe, one of the more intriguing finds of ancient shoes comes from the Alps, on the border of Italy and Austria. The famous Iceman, Ötzi, who lived around 5,300 years ago, wore stylish shoes made from various materials. The sole was made from bear leather, the uppers from deer leather attached to the sole with cow leather straps.
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