Dr. Steven 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.

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 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, among others: 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.