HALLEIN, AUSTRIA—Newsweek reports that archaeologists excavating an Iron Age salt mine in north-west Austria have discovered a small 2,000-year-old leather shoe that once belonged to a child. Since the shoe was left in a layer of rock salt, it is extremely well-preserved and still bears laces made of flax or linen. "Organic materials generally decompose over time," says German Mining Museum archaeologist Thomas Stoellner. "Finds like this child's shoe offer an extremely rare insight into the life of Iron Age miners." He said the shoe shows that it is likely that children lived or worked underground during the second century B.C. The team also unearthed a wooden shovel and the remains of what might be a fur hood that also date to the Iron Age. To read more about childhood during the Iron Age in Central Europe, go to “Artifact: Prehistoric Baby Bottles.”
