Fort Rock Sandals

[Subdeacon Joe]

https://pages.uoregon.edu/connolly/FRsandals.htm

The World's Oldest Shoes

 

 

 

 

Sagebrush bark sandal from Catlow Cave, radiocarbon dated to 9,300 years old

 

In 1938 archaeologist Luther Cressman (from the University of Oregon) excavated at Fort Rock Cave, located in a small volcanic butte approximately half a mile west of the Fort Rock volcanic crater in central Oregon. The Fort Rock Basin is the most northwesterly sub-basin of the Great Basin, Western North America's vast intermontane desert.

 

Cressman found dozens of sandals below a layer of volcanic ash, subsequently determined to come from the eruption of the Mt. Mazama volcano 7500 years ago. Named for the site where they were first found, Fort Rock-style sandals have since been reported from ancient deposits in several Northern Great Basin caves.

Sagebrush bark sandals from Fort Rock Cave, similar to specimens radiocarbon dated from 10,500-9,300 years old.

 

Fort Rock sandals are stylistically distinct. They are twined (pairs of weft fibers twisted around warps), and have a flat, close-twined sole, usually with five rope warps. Twining proceeded from the heel to the toe, where the warps were 

subdivided into finer warps and turned back toward the heel. These fine warps were then open-twined (with spaces between the weft rows) to make a toe flap. Cressman surmised that a tie rope attached to one edge of the sole wrapped around the ankle and fastened to the opposite edge.
 

Most dated Fort Rock-style sandals are from Fort Rock Cave, but directly dated sandals of this type are also known from Cougar Mountain and Catlow Caves. Directly dated Fort Rock style sandals range in age from at least 10,500 BP to 9200 BP (based on dendrocalibrated radiocarbon ages). For more information, refer to Connolly and Cannon 1999.
 

Table 1. Directly dated Fort Rock-style sandals, northern Great Basin.

14C Age	Lab No.	Age Range (cal BP, 1 sigma)	Dated Material	Site	Reference(s)
9188±480*	C-428a	10,920-9650 BP	sagebrush bark	Fort Rock Cave	Arnold and Libby 1951
8916±540*	C-428b	10,440-9380 BP	sagebrush bark	Fort Rock Cave	Cressman 1951; Bedwell and Cressman 1971
8308±43	AA-30056	9380-9240 BP	sagebrush bark	Catlow Cave	Connolly and Cannon 1999
8510±250	UCLA-112	9840-9240 BP	tule	Cougar Mtn. Cave	Ferguson and Libby 1962; Connolly 1994
8500±140	I-1917	9530-9380 BP	sagebrush bark	Fort Rock Cave	Bedwell and Cressman 1971
9215±140	AA-9249	10,360-10,020 BP	sagebrush bark	Fort Rock Cave?	Connolly and Cannon 1999
8715±105	AA-9250	9870-9520 BP	sagebrush bark	Fort Rock Cave?	Connolly and Cannon 1999

Note: ^*The commonly cited 9053±350 age for the "Fort Rock sandal" is actually an average of these two dates, run on "several pairs of woven rope sandals" (Arnold and Libby 1951:117). The weighted average of these two ages produces an age range of 10,390-9650 cal BP.

 

Russian page translation by Alisa Bagrii alisa.bagrii@everycloudtech.com

[Subdeacon Joe]

https://mnch.uoregon.edu/collections-galleries/great-basin-sandals

 

https://centraloregondaily.com/fort-rock-oregon-sandals-history/

 

 

[Cypress Sun]

And here I thought the oldest sandals were crocs.

[Pat Riot]

1 hour ago, Cypress Sun said:

And here I thought the oldest sandals were crocs.

Now that would be a crock. 
 

 

[Texas Lizard]

1 hour ago, Cypress Sun said:

And here I thought the oldest sandals were crocs.

That would tell me, that someone did not very fast....

 

Texas Lizard