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Archaeologists finding what may be world's oldest leather shoe

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  • Archaeologists finding what may be world's oldest leather shoe

    Archaeologists kicking up their heels at finding what may be world's
    oldest leather shoe

    RANDOLPH E. SCHMID AP Science Writer

    June 9, 2010 | 2:12 p.m.

    WASHINGTON (AP) - About 5,500 years ago someone in the mountains of
    Armenia put his best foot forward in what is now the oldest leather
    shoe ever found.

    It'll never be confused with a penny loafer or a track shoe, but the
    well-preserved footwear was made of a single piece of leather, laced
    up the front and back, researchers reported Wednesday in PLoS One, a
    journal of the Public Library of Science.

    Worn and shaped by the wearer's right foot, the shoe was found in a
    cave along with other evidence of human occupation. The shoe had been
    stuffed with grass, which dated to the same time as the leather of the
    shoe - between 5,637 and 5,387 years ago.

    "This is great luck," enthused archaeologist Ron Pinhasi of University
    College Cork in Cork, Ireland, who led the research team.

    "We normally only find broken pots, but we have very little
    information about the day-to-day activity" of these ancient people.
    "What did they eat? What did they do? What did they wear? This is a
    chance to see this ... it gives us a real glimpse into society," he
    said in a telephone interview.

    Previously the oldest leather shoe discovered in Europe or Asia was on
    the famous Otzi, the "Iceman" found frozen in the Alps a few years ago
    and now preserved in Italy. Otzi has been dated to 5,375 and 5,128
    years ago, a few hundred years more recent than the Armenian shoe.

    Otzi's shoes were made of deer and bear leather held together by a
    leather strap. The Armenian shoe appears to be made of cowhide,
    Pinhasi said.

    Older sandals have been found in a cave in Missouri, but those were
    made of fiber rather than leather.

    The shoe found in what is now Armenia was found in a pit, along with a
    broken pot and some wild goat horns.

    But Pinhasi doesn't think it was thrown away. There was discarded
    material that had been tossed outside the cave, while this pit was
    inside in the living area. And while the shoe had been worn, it wasn't
    worn out.

    It's not clear if the grass that filled the shoe was intended as a
    lining or insulation, or to maintain the shape of the shoe when it was
    stored, according to the researchers.

    The Armenian shoe was small by current standards - European size 37 or
    U.S. women's size 7 - but might have fit a man of that era, according
    to Pinhasi.

    He described the shoe as a single piece of leather cut to fit the
    foot. The back of the shoe was closed by a lace passing through four
    sets of eyelets. In the front, 15 pairs of eyelets were used to lace
    from toe to top.

    There was no reinforcement in the sole, just the one layer of soft
    leather. "I don't know how long it would last in rocky terrain,"
    Pinhasi said.

    He noted that the shoe is similar to a type of footwear common in the
    Aran Islands, west of Ireland, up until the 1950s. The Irish version,
    known as "pampooties" reportedly didn't last long, he said.

    "In fact, enormous similarities exist between the manufacturing
    technique and style of this (Armenian) shoe and those found across
    Europe at later periods, suggesting that this type of shoe was worn
    for thousands of years across a large and environmentally diverse
    region," Pinhasi said.

    While the Armenian shoe was soft when unearthed, the leather has begun
    to harden now that it is exposed to air, Pinhasi said.

    Oh, and unlike a lot of very old shoes, it didn't smell.

    Pinhasi said the shoe is currently at the Institute of Archaeology in
    Yerevan, but he hopes it will be sent to laboratories in either
    Switzerland or Germany where it can be treated for preservation and
    then returned to Armenia for display in a museum.

    Pinhasi, meanwhile, is heading back to Armenia this week, hoping the
    other shoe will drop.

    The research was funded by the National Geographic Society, the
    Chitjian Foundation, the Gfoeller Foundation, the Steinmetz Family
    Foundation, the Boochever Foundation and the Cotsen Institute of
    Archaeology at UCLA.

    ___

    On the Net:

    PLoS One: http://www.plosone.org/home.action

    University College Cork: http://www.ucc.ie/en/

    Institute of Archaeology, Yerevan: http://www.sci.am/resorgs.php?oid


    http://www.latimes.com/news/science/wire/sns-ap-us-fea-old-shoe,0,3202415.story




    From: A. Papazian
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