Human Shoes in Use 40,000 Years Ago
posted in Humans |Humans wore shoes almost 10,000 years earlier then what was previously thought of according to a study conducted at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
The evidence has been gathered from a human fossil that is 40,000-year-old having delicate toe bones, which indicates habitual shoe-wearing, according to experts.
An earlier study conducted on anatomical changes in toe bone structure dated the shoes as being used about 30,000 years ago. Now this delicate toed fossil suggests that some humans were using protective footwear 10,000 years further back. This was at a time when both Neanderthals and modern humans occupied parts of Asia and Europe.
Study author Erik Trinkaus, paleoanthropologist, Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri said that due to scarcity of toe bone fossils makes it hard to determine the exact period when habitual shoe-wearing had become widespread. He claims, however, that even Neanderthals may have been using sandals.
Earlier humans, which includes Neanderthals indicates occasional use of shoes. Regular shoe may have become common by 40,000 years ago. The study by Trinkaus as well as Chinese co-author Hong Shang appears in the July issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.