Posted on 09/15/2023 10:08:26 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
A new analysis of ancient footprints in South Africa suggests that the humans who made these tracks might have been wearing hard-soled sandals.
Ichnological evidence from three palaeosurfaces on the Cape Coast, in conjunction with neoichnological study, suggests that humans may indeed have worn footwear while traversing dune surfaces during the Middle Stone Age.
The study is published in the journal Ichnos.
While researchers are reluctant to shoehorn in any firm conclusions regarding the use of footwear in the distant past, the prints' unusual characteristics may provide the oldest evidence yet that people used shoes to protect their feet from sharp rocks in the Middle Stone Age.
No direct dates have been assigned to the well-preserved markings found on stone slabs at three different sites along the Cape Coast, according to the study's authors. However, the researchers hypothesize that tracks discovered at a location known as Kleinkrantz may be between 79,000 and 148,000 years old based on the age of other nearby rocks and sediments.
The footprints show no toes, discerning it from barefoot markings, and instead displayed "rounded anterior ends, crisp margins, and possible evidence of strap attachment points.' Similar markings that are estimated to have been left between 73,000 and 136,000 years ago were located at a site called Goukamma...
Offering a possible motive for the use of such footwear, they go on to explain that coastal foraging involves clambering over sharp rocks while also posing the risk of stepping on sea urchins...
Despite their promising findings, researchers are reluctant to make any bold claims...
(Excerpt) Read more at arkeonews.net ...
Well obviously any human who was smart enough to travel any distance on foot would protect those feet from possibly damaging terrain, since those feet were his only means of transportation-duh!
You only have “sensitive feet” if you protect/sensitize the soles of them all the time by wearing shoes. As a ranch kid, I only wore shoes/boots when working outdoors in the barn and other horse/livestock areas-obvious reasons-or in the pasture where the stickers, cactus and mesquite thorns were. In the yard or anywhere else, it was bare feet-and still is. I wear boots-steel toes- at work and other public places-but at home I only wear them when doing outdoor work that involves nails, screws, heavy things that can fall on feet, etc. Otherwise it is bare feet, Winter and Summer-I do wear socks indoors if the floor is really, really cold in Winter-or outdoors if the ground has ice on it and I’m going to be out there for awhile. Maybe I carry the all natural thing a bit far-but I can walk on hot ground without difficulty-same for cold ground-and grassburrs do not penetrate my feet much at all. The soles of my feet do have very thick skin and feel like sandpaper, and I don’t get pedicures, either...
At any weight you have to be acclimated to being in bare feet-I weigh 103-105, but my best friend/employer is 6’2” and 205-goes in bare feet all the time like I do-but he has done it from an early age...
Ck with Old Joe…they’re probably his footprints. Do they wander around in circles? Definitely Joe.
Sounds like a Croc to me.
so if the print is like a shoe print in the sand, how did the print harden and not erode? anyway, I guess I can look it up.
LOL
Thanks!
[singing] Had to thank old Miss Mort for schooling a failure...
Brian Williams worked his way through journalism school selling these very sandals to the ancient locals.
It wasn’t murder?
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