Anasazi Sandals: Museo Nacional de Antropologia, D.F., Mexico
These are some old shoes. If they are in fact Anasazi shoes, they could be upwards of 3,000 years old. The fiber used might be from the yucca plant. It’s weird to see the large strips used when the middle shows some finer work. Compare these to the sandals from the site in New Mexico known as Aztec. Those seem to have the fiber size that is in between these two.
Below is a description of the Anasazi culture. It has nothing to do with shoes:
The Anasazi, whose name means “Ancient people” in Navajo, progressed from being hunter-gatherers to farmers around the year AD 500, a long time after their Hohokam and Mogollon contemporaries. After that moment they copied the Mogollon’s technology to make pottery with rolled clay and build the kivas.
The Anasazi culture extended from the southwest of Colorado and southeast Utah toward the northeast of Arizona and northwest of New Mexico. The most important site was Mesa Verde.
After the year AD 1000, the Anasazi began building systems to transport water in canals and terraces, allowing them to increase agricultural yields and therefore their population. This was the period of their greatest territorial expansion and cultural development. They created roads and paths with signs that served as forms of communication. They carried on trade, especially in turquoise and their characteristic black on white pottery.
Just like the Hohokam and Mogollon, the Anasazi culture began to decline around the year 1300 and by AD 1600 they had completely abandoned the area. Descendants of the Anasazi who left us archaeological remains live to this day in 18 communities in the same desert region.