Detail map of Vayots Dzor Province, Armenia,Fort Rock, Oregon, United States

A: Vayots Dzor Province, Armenia, B: Fort Rock, Oregon, United States

The Oldest Known Well-Preserved Leather Shoe, from the Cave of Areni-1, Armenia

Circa 3500 BCE

The Areni-1 shoe, a 5,500-year-old leather shoe, found in 2008 in excellent condition in the "Areni-1" cave located in the Vayots Dzor province of Armenia, is a one-piece leather-hide shoe that has been dated as a few hundred years older than the one found on Ötzi the Iceman, making it the oldest piece of leather footwear in the world known to contemporary researchers.

"Much older footwear, 10,000 year old sandals made of sagebrush fiber, has been discovered in the United States at Fort Rock Cave in Oregon. By evidence found to date, the use of shoes arose between 40,000 and 26,000 years ago. The discovery was made by a team led by archaeologist Ron Pinhasi of University College Cork in Ireland.

"The shoe was found in near-perfect condition due to the cool and dry conditions in the cave and a thick layer of sheep dung which acted as a solid seal. Large storage containers were found in the same cave, many of which held well-preserved wheat, barley, and apricots, as well as other edible plants. The shoe contained grass and the archaeologists were uncertain as to whether this was because the grass was used as insulation to keep the foot warm, or used to preserve the shape of the shoe while not being worn. Lead archaeologist Ron Pinhasi could not determine whether the shoe belonged to a man or a woman. While small, approximately a woman's U.S. and Canada size 7, European size 37, or UK size 6, he stated that "the shoe could well have fitted a man from that era". The shoe laces were preserved as well.

"Major similarities exist between the manufacturing technique and style of one-piece leather-hide shoes discovered across Europe and the one reported from Areni-1 Cave, suggesting that shoes of this type were worn for millennia across a large and environmentally diverse geographic region. According to Pinhasi, the Areni-1 shoe is similar to the Irish pampooties, a shoe style worn in the Aran Islands up to the 1950s. The shoes are very similar to the traditional shoes of the Balkans, still seen today in festivals, known as Opanci (Opanke)." (Wikipedia article on Areni-1 shoe, accessed 01-16-2011).

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