Posted on 08/24/2005 10:06:07 PM PDT by LibWhacker
Sturdy shoes first came into widespread use between 40,000 and 26,000 years ago, according to a US scientist.
Humans' small toes became weaker during this time, says physical anthropologist Erik Trinkaus, who has studied scores of early human foot bones.
He attributes this anatomical change to the invention of rugged shoes, that reduced our need for strong, flexible toes to grip and balance.
The research is presented in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
The development of footwear appears to have affected the four so-called "lesser" toes - excepting the big toe.
Ancient footwear
While early humans living in cold northern climates may have begun covering up their feet to insulate them as early as 500,000 years ago, protective footwear comparable to modern-day shoes is thought to be a much later innovation.
It has been difficult for archaeologists to determine exactly when humans stopped going barefoot, however, because the plant and animal materials used to make prehistoric shoes is highly perishable.
"The oldest shoes in the world are about 9,000 years old, and they're from California," said Professor Trinkaus, of Washington University in St Louis, US.
But by examining the foot bones of early modern humans (Homo sapiens) and Neaderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) dating from 10,000 to 100,000 years ago, Professer Trinkaus says he has determined the period in which footwear became the norm.
Anatomical evidence
He found Neanderthals and early moderns living in Middle Palaeolithic times (100,000 to 40,000 years ago) had thicker, and therefore stronger, lesser toes than those of Upper Palaeolithic people living 26,000 years ago.
A shoe-less lifestyle promotes stronger little toes, says Professor Trinkaus, because "when you walk barefoot, you grip the ground with your toes as a natural reflex". Because hard-soled shoes improve both grip and balance, regularly shod people develop weaker little toes.
To test the theory that the more delicate toes resulted from shoe use, the Washington University researcher compared the foot bones of early Native Americans, who regularly went barefoot, and contemporary Alaskan Inuits, who sported heavy sealskin boots.
Again, he identified chunkier toes in the population that routinely went without shoes. The research suggests shoe-wearers developed weaker toes simply because of the reduced stresses on them during their lifetime; it was not an evolutionary change.
The comparison proves his hypothesis, he says: "It has been suggested in the past that thicker toes and fingers are related to greater blood supply in colder climates, but it just doesn't hold up."
Cultural "explosion"
The advent of footwear occurred during a period Professor Trinkaus describes as "a well-documented archaeological explosion" which also produced a number of other notable human advances.
Paul Mellars, professor of prehistory and human evolution at the University of Cambridge, UK, agrees there were "dramatic changes" in human behaviour at this time. "From 35,000 years ago onward, you see the first art, the first stone tools, and the first personal decorations and jewellery."
More advanced shoe-making skills could have been a product of this overall increase in technological ingenuity.
"There is a strong hint that people were doing more complicated things with ...skins, with special stone tools for cleaning and awls for piercing.
"In view of all these changes, it wouldn't be at all surprising if we saw better shoes," Professor Mellars explained.
I'll buy that the idea of shoes may have spread in the mentioned 14,000 interval (40,000 - 26,000 BCE). But I can't buy the notion that the necessity to wear shoes due to evolutionary changes in human anatomy happened world wide in that period.
Ah, but it wasn't an evolutionary change, according to the article. The lesser toes on shoe-wearers are weaker because they aren't exercised as much, and this shows up in the anatomy.
By time of the emergence of modern humans (175,000 - 200,000 years ago), we had evolved the capability of running/jogging 35-50 miles per day on a near perpetual basis. An attribute Darwinism tells us wouldn't have occurred unless this ability was necessary to survive. IOW, those who couldn't keep up didn't live to mate. The one question I have about this running man theory of mine is the practical necessity of shoes or some type of foot protection to run that consistently. I seem to have found the answer in Steven Oppenhiemer's "The Real Eve" which postulates that modern humans were almost exclusively beach combers up until at least 60,000 years ago. It's a lot easier to run barefoot on soft sand than inland terrain.
He found Neanderthals and early moderns living in Middle Palaeolithic times (100,000 to 40,000 years ago) had thicker, and therefore stronger, lesser toes than those of Upper Palaeolithic people living 26,000 years ago.
Since again, Darwinism implies that physical evolution wouldn't occur unless it was necessary to survive over an extended period, the stretched dates seem logical for the inland move away from the beach for modern humans, the cold weather suggestion seems more appropriate for the neatherdhals?
This is absurd. People stopped growing strong toes because shoes came along? No one could make that argument with a straight face. They would need to argue that strong toed people were not sexually desirable so didn't pass along their strong toes...that would at least make evolutionary sense.
How can they tell how strong a toe was without having muscle tissue to examine? Bone size seems irrelevant. Europeans typically have larger bones in their feet than Asians do. So what?
First question, which kind of toes are recessive & which are dominant? Second question, is it different for the different populations?
Before shoes, weak toed people would get killed off in greater rates, cuz they ran slower when the beasty chased a tribe, so fewer people would pass along weak toes. After shoes, more weak toe people would live to reproduce. Could be that smart weak toe people invented shoes, giving smart weak toe people an advantage over all strong toe people & stupid weak toe people.
It's NOT an evolutionary argument. The claim is that people stopped growing strong toes because with the advent of shoes their toes no longer got the same amount of exercise. Presumably, we've still got the genes for big strong toes and if we were to spend our lives barefoot running through the forest and climbing trees and rocks all day we'd have big, strong toes again.
Can similar shifts be seen in finger sizes?
Did we just keep the little ones (fingers) for digging bugs and various substances out of bodily orifices?
Why not just have bigger toes to retain heat during the ice ages, whereas smaller toes with less unit volume per unit of surface area would be more prone to freezing?
After the climate mediated, big, hairy toes would sweat more and smell bad, where delicate toes would be less prone to getting funky and driving Og-ette out of the cave.
Thus, a shift in mating habits brought about by foot odor....
$ound$ like it would need to be $tudied.
I guess I could consider that notion but as far as the shoe angle goes, aren't there some tribes that never really devised shoes for themselves that have no members with "strong toes"?
Good question. $omething el$e needing to be examined.
If you don't find the "strong toes" in the primitive shoeless tribes, you can throw out the shoe theory.
He found that with one tribal paring. Further inve$tigation will need to be done.
Feet without shoes don't get that funky foot smell.
Not this girl! Shoes shaped like those would never have left my closet, if I had a momentary lapse & actually bought a pair. Some women get foot bones removed to wear things like those? Get real!
LOL!
*Looking* at them made my feet hurt....:))
How come nobody is studying hillbilly feet?
In my formative years, unless I was in school, I was barefoot nearly year round.
Thanks to that, I "evolved" the ability to write with my feet, pick up things as small as a dime with my toes [to hubby's continual amazement/amusement] and can deliver a pretty good pinch with them, if necessary....:))
[I've deigned to wear slip-on sneaks when out in the yard now so I have become somewhat more "civilized" in my old age]...;D
Yeah, I know...danged b'arfoot, ridge-running, bog-trotting hick....LOL!
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