Oldest Leather Shoe (5,500 years old)
"It is astonishing how much this shoe resembles a modern shoe!" said a famous designer. Stuffed with grass, perhaps as an insulator or an early shoe tree, the 5,500-year-old moccasin-like shoe was found exceptionally well preserved—thanks to a surfeit of sheep dung—during a 2010 dig in an Armenian cave
About as big as a current women's size seven (U.S.), the shoe was likely tailor-made for the right foot of its owner. Radiocarbon dated to about 3500 B.C., during Armenia's Copper Age, the prehistoric shoe is compressed in the heel and toe area, likely due to miles upon miles of walking. However, the shoe is by no means worn out.
Oldest Musical Instrument (42,000 years old)
In 2012, researchers identified what they say are the oldest-known musical instruments in the world. A couple of flutes made from bird bone and mammoth ivory came from Hohle Fels Cave in Germany, which contains early evidence of the occupation of Europe by modern humans, or Homo sapiens. Scientists used carbon dating to show that the flutes were between 42,000 and 43,000 years old.
Oldest Chewing Gum (5,000 years old)
In 2007, a 5,000-year-old piece of chewing gum, the oldest ever discovered, was found by a British archaeology student in Finland. The Neolithic gum, made from birch bark tar, had tooth prints in it.
"Birch bark tar contains phenols, which are antiseptic compounds. It is generally believed that Neolithic people found that by chewing this stuff if they had gum infections it helped to treat the condition," said Trevor Brown from the University of Derby.
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