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People started wearing shoes about 40 thousand years ago – that is the conclusion arrived at by Erik Trinkhaus of the Washington University in St. Louis, who analyzed the foot bones of the ancient people.
This same guy initially suggested a different date for this wonderful creation of men, but the newly discovered data added another 10 thousand years to the date.

The oldest shoes found are dated 10 thousand years B.C., since just like other everyday items of the time they destruct easily. That’s why it is a little difficult to calculate the exact date. So what the scientists did was analyze the bones of ancient people’s feet and legs. The thing is that is has been scientifically proven that wearing anything on feet (even just soles) leads to changes in the structure of phalanges of the third toe.

Discovery of ancient people’s bones is not the thing that happens so often. That is why when two toe phalanges (dating 40 thousand year back) were discovered in China, Erik Trinkhaus and his partner Hong Shang from the Chinese Academy of Sciences rushed to study the discoveries right away.

They then analyzed the skeleton aged 27.5 thousand years that was found in , a skeleton of the Neanderthal man, as well as two other skeletons belonging to the people closer to our age.

Having compared the toe phalanges the scientists arrived at the conclusion that it was 40 thousand years ago when people first invented and started wearing shoes. They published the  results of the experiment in the Journal of Archaeological Science, which was met with criticism by some representatives within the academic circles, claiming that the first shoes could have been created by Neanderthal men, who lived under rather conditions.

Trinkhaus does not mind, yet,  he does hold his position pretty dear.

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