Cave of a Thousand Shoes
Dr. Steve Nash
We have a mystery for you: Large caches of shoes dating from 300 to 1200 CE have been discovered in caves across the American Southwest.
The dry caves of the Southwest do a remarkable job of protecting perishable materials including things such as leather, cotton string, reed baskets, and yucca fiber ropes, nets, and knots. But its the shoes that are extraordinary because there are so many of them. Excavations have yielded astonishing numbers of shoes at these caves: Ceremonial Cave near El Paso, Texas, yielded 1,200 sandals; a cave near Navajo Reservoir in northern New Mexico contained 1,000; the Promontory cave complex near the Great Salt Lake in Utah has numerous children’s moccasins.
Why were they left behind? The latest installment of Tiny Lectures reveals a theory about these caches.
About Steve Nash
Dr. Steve Nash is an archaeologist, columnist, historian of science, and stand-up comedian. He is currently studying the Mogollon archaeology of southwestern New Mexico, Indian peace medals in the Museum’s Crane Collection, and the enchanting Russian gem carving sculptures of Vasily Konovalenko. He has written and edited seven books and dozens of peer-reviewed articles on subjects ranging from Neanderthal stone tools to tree-ring dates, the history of museums to Southwestern archaeology. He has published nearly 40 Curiosities columns for the SAPIENS online magazine, on topics ranging from ancient Roman hygiene to Leonardo da Vinci, and from the Huey helicopter to the use of GPS systems. He has been at the Museum for 13 years; prior to this he served as head of collections in the Department of Anthropology at the Field Museum in Chicago. Eons ago, he served as a tour guide and lecturer at the Museum of Science and Industry.
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