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
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 in 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.
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.
