A pair of shoes found in a Spanish cave may be the oldest ever discovered in Europe, dating back no less than 6,200 years of age, and potentially as old as 9,500 years.
The discovery included 20 sets of sandals, along with numerous other artifacts.
The shoes were originally dug out in the 1800s, but just recently were carbon-dating by researchers from the Universidad de Alcalá (UAH) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB).
6,000-year-old sandals were found in a Spanish bat cave. Sandals woven from grass and other materials date back to the Neolithic period. pic.twitter.com/5RUtm4LnBu
— KnowledgeMint (@knowledgemint) September 30, 2023
“These are the earliest and widest-ranging assemblage of prehistoric footwear, both in the Iberian Peninsula and in Europe, unparalleled at other latitudes,” stated UAH researcher Francisco Martínez Sevilla.
“The new dating of the esparto baskets from the Cueva de los Murciélagos of Albuñol opens a window of opportunity to understanding the last hunter-gatherer societies of the early Holocene.”
“The quality and technological complexity of the basketry makes us question the simplistic assumptions we have about human communities prior to the arrival of agriculture in Southern Europe,” Sevilla continued.
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