The oldest footwear in Europe consists of esparto sandals recovered 150 years ago in the Bat Cave of Albuñol, Granada. The collection of 22 sneakers, which were made 6,200 years ago using two different techniques, also represents the largest set of prehistoric footwear on the entire continent. The data were presented this Wednesday in the journal Science Advances as part of the classification and dating of 76 pieces of wood and plant fiber from the same site.
The archaeological complex was discovered in the mid-19th century during a mining survey in the Granada cave, and since the end of the century it has been part of the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid and the Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum of Granada. Now, a group of Spanish researchers has combined archaeological, technological and statistical analyzes to analyze and locate in time 76 of the pieces that compose it.
“We have made a typological and technological classification” of all the pieces, explains Francisco Martínez-Sevilla, professor at the University of Alcalá and coordinator of the project studying the site, in conversation with La Vanguardia. The team has organized each of the objects according to their purpose (baskets, sandals, tools, etc.) and the technique by which they were created (taking into account the raw material and the decoration that adorned them).
Once the samples have been classified into groups of equals, the researchers have dated a single element of each one to, from there, approximate the age of the entire collection, considering that the similar pieces correspond to the same period. Of the 76 pieces that make up the collection, carbon-14 was only used in 14 of them, enough to indicate that most of the objects are between 7,200 and 6,000 years old.
An important part of the archaeological complex is the largest European collection of prehistoric footwear. It is made up of a total of 22 esparto sandals that archaeologists have separated into two groups, because they were made with two different techniques, as revealed by analyzes from the 80s. The analysis of each group revealed that both were manufactured approximately at the same time. , about 6,200 years ago, therefore being the oldest footwear on the continent.
The dating of the 76 artifacts has also revealed that the cave was not only used in the Neolithic, as was believed until now. “The best preserved set of baskets is 2,000 years older than previously thought,” explains Martínez-Sevilla, meaning that it is about 9,500 years old. According to researchers, these are the oldest plant fiber objects made by hunter-gatherers in Europe.
The new dating and analysis of the techniques used in the baskets show that the technological development of the hunter-gatherer societies that inhabited the Iberian Peninsula was superior to what was believed until now. The set of remains from the Bat Cave “shows us a very diverse repertoire of techniques, some of which have lasted to the present day,” details Raquel Piqué, archaeologist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).
The researcher, co-author of the work, highlights that currently baskets are not made in a very different way from archaeological remains. “This shows us a long tradition and continuity with these technologies throughout history,” she concludes.
For Maria Herrero-Otal, a researcher at the UAB Archeobotany Laboratory who has also participated in the publication, the work shows that “the use of esparto grass has been alive for at least 9,500 years,” although it is most likely that its use goes back even further. “Because of the skill with which these baskets are made, and because of how the esparto grass has had to be prepared and worked to be able to make them, there must be a previous tradition,” she asserts.
The Bat Cave site is an exception. Together with La Draga, in Banyoles, they are two unique enclaves in which, due to their conservation conditions, it has been possible to recover prehistoric materials made of wood or plant fiber. In general, these objects do not survive to this day.
The lack of plant samples means that we are “losing a large amount of information on technological and ecological knowledge [...], and we are contributing to giving a biased vision of prehistory, that they only worked stone, when surely a large part of Their needs were solved with wooden instruments or fiber containers,” says Piqué. There are authors, such as archaeologist Lisa Hurcombe, who consider that objects of plant origin represent “the lost majority” in archaeological records.
The UAB researcher hopes that the findings from the Cueva de los Murciélagos will be a catalyst for the sector, and will allow the development of techniques with which to analyze the role of plant technology in prehistoric societies. “These sites allow us to test new ways of approaching the study of archaeological sites and generate new working hypotheses, to reevaluate what we already know,” she concludes.
Meanwhile, archaeologists have re-excavated the Bat Cave and, according to Herrero-Otal, “due to the stratigraphy and the association of materials, a chronology emerges even older than the 9,500 years from which the oldest baskets date.” ancient” presented today.
