19th of September, 1991 was an important date for shoe history. On this day, a mummy was found in a glacier in the Ötztal Alps. Researchers also discovered a pair of well-preserved primitive shoes on so-called Ötzi's feet. The shoe uppers were made of deerskin, the insides of the shoes were made of woven linden bast, the cushioning and isolating layers were made of grass fibres, and the soles were made of bearskin. The footwear was estimated to be roughly 5,300 years old. This discovery, combined with research conducted upon 40,000-year-old Chinese skeletons as well as paintings found in the Altamira Cave dating back to 15,000 - 12,000 B.C., demonstrates that humans developed the need to protect their feet from the elements quite early on.