As Comfy as an Old--Very Old--Shoe

There were no spike heels, wingtips or cross-trainers. But footwear crafted by American cave dwellers thousands of years ago was fashionable, tough and well made.

“My guess is that these shoes were very stylish for the time,” said Michael J. O’Brien, an anthropologist who analyzed 35 specimens of sandals, moccasins and slip-ons unearthed in a Missouri cave that was a popular campsite some 9,000 years ago.

The shoes were also very durable, he said. Of 35 samples recovered, 20 were complete or nearly complete. This enabled O’Brien and co-researchers from Louisiana State University to analyze and date the footgear for the first time, he said. A report on the study was published this month in the journal Science.

The oldest specimen was a sandal made from a woven, fibrous material that dated from about 9,400 years before the present. The most recent, about 1,000 years old, was a classic deerskin moccasin, probably made for a child.

Even though the shoes spanned thousands of years, said O’Brien, the basic craftsmanship was about the same.

“They did not invent something flimsy that then got better over time,” he said. “The earliest shoe is every bit as well made and as complex as those from later on.”

There were a variety of styles and differences in crafting details, suggesting, said O’Brien, that there may have been concessions to style or fashion.

“There was no ornamentation or color that we know about, but my guess is that these shoes were very stylish for the time,” he said. “We know that people then were wearing jewelry.” O’Brien said it was likely that such artistic interest carried over into the footgear.

“There were no spike heels,” he said, “but there were sling backs [an open sandal with a cupping heel and a loop that grasps the heel bone].” Sling backs are a common summer fashion shoe even now.

Only the moccasins were made of leather, and the researcher said it is likely that the cave dwellers did not use leather for shoes much earlier than that.

All of the other shoes were made with fibrous plants that could be woven into a tough fabric used for the top, bottom and sides of the footwear. O’Brien said the most common material was from a yucca-like plant called rattlesnake master. The leaves were dried and plaited into cording that was then woven.

There were comfort innovations. The moccasins were cushioned with grass that functioned “like a Dr. Scholl’s foot pad,” said O’Brien.

Footwear got hard use among the prehistoric Americans. The people, who have not been named, had to walk most places, since there were no horses. They had to hunt or gather all of their food and to haul water back to the cave, all jobs that took much walking.

“Many of the shoes wore down exactly the way that our shoes do--the ball of the foot and the heel,” said O’Brien.

Foot size, he said, appears to be much like that of modern humans. There is no way to tell if wearers of the ancient shoes were male or female, but the average length was about 10 1/2 inches. O’Brien said this is about an 8 1/2 in modern American women’s sizes.