Tim Radford
Early North Americans were a step ahead in the world of dress codes. The first fashion shoes – sandals, slingbacks and slip-ons – have been dated at up to 8 300 years old. The shoes, originally preserved in a dry cave in Missouri and now dated precisely for the first time, are prehistoric by any measure.
In 6300BC, the first farming communities were experimenting with crops in the Middle East, and it would be another 1 000 years before the first cities would spring up in Mesopotamia. Yet 2 000 years before the Egyptians began stringing harps, people in the New World created complex shoe designs, according to the United States journal Science.
Humans began to camp in the Missouri cave 10 000 years ago and more than 7 500 years ago kicked off shoes and lost them. Scientists led by Jenna Kutruff of Louisiana State University identified four sandals and 13 slip- ons, out of 35 specimens.
Four shoes were padded with fibres from a plant known as rattlesnake master. Three had sole, toe, back and vamp. Fibres were twisted and interlaced to form straps, soles and heels.