Humanity’s early ancestors started dabbling with bipedalism — walking on two legs — as much as 6 to 7 million years ago. It took a while to find our evolutionary footing, but by 3 million years later, the fossil record shows that hominins were pretty well committed to being upstanding.
Walking on two legs was literally a great step forward for us. Bipedal locomotion is far more energy-efficient than using both arms and legs to propel us forward, as many primates still do. Conserving energy translates into better endurance, which early humans leveraged to their advantage. Back in the day, we were marathon walkers and runners, able to outlast — and pursue to exhaustion — just about any animal we wanted to hunt down.
No doubt about it: Becoming bipedal was one of the most important evolutionary events in the history of our species. This key adaptation helped cement humanity’s position as the dominant species on the planet — and we got there on our own two feet.
But this naturally begs a question: When did it occur to humans to protect those feet with shoes or sandals? The precise timing of the origin of footwear remains one of the great mysteries in archaeology, anthropology, and human evolution.
