Ohmygod, Shoes.

"World's Oldest Leather Shoe Found—Stunningly Preserved" says this National Geographic article I found while reading up on Jacques Cousteau's 100th Birthday (more on that later). The piece alternates between obvious and insightful.

"It is astonishing," [Manolo] Blahnik said via email, "how much this shoe resembles a modern shoe!"

Um... isn't that what makes it a shoe?

[T]he 5,500-year-old moccasin-like shoe was found exceptionally well preserved—thanks to a surfeit of sheep dung

Wow, okay, go sheep!

[T]he shoe was likely tailor-made for the right foot of its owner, who could have been a man or a woman — not enough is known about Armenian feet of the era to say for sure.

Uhhh...

"The hide had been cut into two layers and tanned, which was probably quite a new technology," explained Ron Pinhasi, co-director of the dig, from University College Cork in Ireland.

But see, that's interesting!

"It immediately struck me as very similar to a traditional form of Balkan footwear known as the opanke, which is still worn as a part of regional dress at festivals today," said Elizabeth Semmelhack, a curator at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Canada.

And so is that!

Protecting the foot was probably one of the main reasons people started wearing shoes

Facepalm.

[S]hoes like this would have enabled people to cope with extremes of temperature in the region—up to 113°F (45°C) in summer and below freezing in winter — and to travel farther. "These people were walking long distances. We have found obsidian in the cave, which came from at least 75 miles [120 kilometers] away," [study co-author Gregory Areshian] said.

Again: interesting!

Blahnik, the shoe designer, speculates that even this simple design was worn for style as well as substance.

Sigh.

I am in no doubt that a certain appearance of a shoe meant belonging to a particular tribe," said Blahnik

Ok, good way to spin it...

The wearing of shoes, though, is almost certainly older than the oldest known shoes. For example, a weakening of small toe bones found in 40,000-year-old human fossils has been cited as evidence of the advent of shoes.

Go Science!

Rebecca Shawcross, a shoe historian at the Northampton Museums & Art Gallery in the U.K. ...

I want that job. But I'll probably have to fight Kelly to the death for it.