Scientists in Austria have found unusual prehistoric footprints and an ice age child's shoe.

Footprints from the past and a shoe

In Austria, archaeologists found an unusually well-preserved child's shoe from the Iron Age.

Archaeologists from the German Mining Museum in Bochum made the discovery while digging at Dürrnberg near Hallein, a site where rock salt was previously extracted during the Iron Age.

A news statement states that the newest discovery, a "extremely well-preserved" child's shoe, is believed to be more than 2,000 years old.

It is believed that the salt present in the area contributed to its preservation. It is still possible to make out the shape of the entire shoe, as well as the rope that held it to the child's foot.

It is made of leather and is the same size as a contemporary 12.5 child's shoe.

Thomas Stoellner, head of the research division, claims that for decades, their work at Dürrnberg has provided them with important discoveries that have allowed them to conduct a scientific investigation into the first mining operations.

The found shoe is in incredible condition.

According to Stoellner, organic molecules normally degrade with time.

Extremely rare findings like this child's shoe can provide insight into the daily lives of Iron Age miners. They provided pertinent information for scientific study.

Iron Age Way of Life

It was kept so beautifully that the discovery is extremely unusual. The child's shoe is particularly interesting because it demonstrated that children resided or worked underground during this time period, according to the press release, even though Iron Age shoes had already been found.

Based on its design, archaeologists can date the shoe to the second century BC.

It is thought that the Iron Age began in Central and Western Europe around the beginning of the first millennium BC and came to an end with the Roman conquests in the first century BC.

During this time, iron tools and weapons were created to replace their bronze equivalents.

Along with the shoe, the archaeologists made other important finds. A wooden shovel and what seemed to be a fur hood were also found nearby.

In order to inform academics about the lives of Iron Age miners, excavations in the area will continue in the upcoming years.

Additional Ancient Footwear Finds

Prior to this discovery, two footprints left by young Neanderthals in a Greek cave 130,000 years ago were the earliest indication of footwear use.

Other Neanderthal traces have been considered to be evidence of shod feet in France, despite the fact that these cases are debatable.

The authors of the paper point out the difficulty of such investigations by citing traces discovered in Nevada in the 1880s that were initially thought to have been formed by a person wearing sandals but later revealed to have been made by a massive sloth.

According to the researchers, since non-hominin sloth tracks differ significantly from those of barefoot hominins, expert paleontologists initially confused them for those of shod hominins in this case.

The authors avoid making any meaningful claims about their findings because they don't want to make such flimsy ones.

However, based on their research, they speculate that humans may have worn footwear when crossing dune surfaces during the Middle Stone Age.