Why do we glove our feet?
For insulation, primarily. Some kind of covering for feet were used in cold northern climates as early as 500,000 years ago, and the earliest forms of shoes for support are estimated to have come into use 40,000 to 26,000 years ago.
How do we know this? By examining the bones of early Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthals. Wearers of shoes tend to develop weaker toes owing to a reduced need for strength and flexibility, with the shoes doing most of the work of gripping ground. Studies have shown that Native Americans who were regularly barefoot had stronger toes than Inuits in Alaska who wore insulating footwear, proving that the weakness/strength of toes is not evolutionary!
In another case of barefoot behaviour, one of the earliest hunting strategies of humans relied heavily on long-distance running. Hunters (ancient versions of us) chased the prey until the latter eventually tired and slowed down. At this point the early humans could kill from short distances – typically by clubbing/stoning. This also gave them the unique ability to attack other predatory creatures, which were incapable of sustaining their speedy, lithe attacks over long periods time. Called ‘Persistence Hunting’, this could make for several hours of heated pursuit – the kind that would warrant a $100 pair of running shoes today.
… all of which leads us (un)comfortably to why I started thinking about this in the first place — heels hurt — the Sam Edelman and Jimmy Choo kind, not the Achilles kind. With return to office around the corner, I returned to the long-forgotten pain of shoe bites (albeit just a hybrid thrice a week for now), and to the nagging question of why we wear shoes.
While I started with achy heels, my blissfully unaware co-author researched sneakers and their evolution, of which we’ll definitely not hear about in the next issue (scheduled for 6 shoe bites later). I’m sure it’s going to be rant on rubber soles or something.
What’s that and why?
Stilettos: Thought to be named after long pointy needle-like swords of Italian origin. The word itself comes from Latin ‘stilus’, a thin pointed Roman writing instrument for engraving wax or clay tablets. The same root word also gave rise to ‘stylus’.
Bata: Founded in 1894 in today’s Czech Republic, named after the founding cobbler Tomáš Baťa. (Did you also think it was an Indian company? No? Neither did we…)
Hawai Slippers: The ultra comfortable, all-withstanding tropical slippers made of rubber we wore growing up are not universally known as the ‘Hawaii slipper’. In fact it’s spelt ‘Hawai’ and was the name given to the sandals by Bata, which introduced and popularized the style in India. Most of the world calls them by their onomatopoeic name ‘flip-flops’. They’re called ‘zoris’ in Japan, ‘jandals’ in New Zealand, ‘plakkies’ in South Africa, and confusingly known as ‘thongs’ in Australia. Hawaiians call them ‘slippers’.
Perplexed Potatoes 
