Carpets or Footwear

[lookinlocal]

Which came first, carpets or footwear

[Kit]

Unsure - there is evidence of both dating from prehistoric times. However, it would seem logical for footwear to develop first. The cave could be effectively "carpeted" with plant material etc long before they had the idea of using wool, whereas foot protection would be needed for effective hunting from quite an early stage.

[robber1]

Logic tells me that footwear came first because walking on stones hurt. I suppose the first "carpet" was straw, just spread across the floor.

[slowdown]

Recent archaeology suggests that both footwear and the domestic carpet were predated by the practice of strapping small mammals to the soles of the feet when venturing outside.(Cave paintings in Western Spain suggest guinea pigs, or moles). Being worn day-in/day-out in this fashion, the mammals found it difficult to maintain their preferred body shape (or self-esteem), and a general flattening effect would take hold. This flattening, although perhaps providing the wearer with an initial increase in comfort, quickly rendered the warm-blooded footwear unsuitable for activities requiring speed and balance (hunting, dancing). To this day we refer to clumsy or slow-reacting people as 'flat-footed'. When they reached this point, the downtrodden animals were generally discarded. At some point later in the history (dating proves difficult) these stiff furry tiles became useful as insulation, and generally coated the floor and interior walls of the prehistoric domicile. In this way, the shoe and carpet were born. Steve Kuhn Arizona Dept. Archaeology