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Socks serve a practical purpose when combined with shoes. They prevent rubbing (blisters) and they keep the skin cells and oils from your feet from the insides of your shoes.
Shoes serve a practical purpose in that they protect your feet from rocks, glass, and hot pavement. Did our ancestors need shoes? No. But humans have made our environments less friendly to bare feet
Our ancestors DID need shoes. Footprints in South Africa dated to be between 75K and 136K years old show footwear in use. We invented shoes possibly 100,000 years before we invented written language.
Do they show shoes or do they show sandals?
Normally not a big difference, footwear is footwear. But, if we're talking about socks, then the difference becomes relevant again.
Undetermined. Just the bottom of the shoes made an imprint.
I'm betting crocs.
I'm giggling at the idea of ancient people's wearing socks with Crocs, but I can't help but feel that clogs specifically might leave a different footprint.
What are you talking about? The oldest shoe we've found is roughly 10000 years old.
Our ancestors absolutely needed shoes. That's why they made them.
It's really social norms, not anything else. There are probably more sharp and pointy things in the wilderness, then where we walk day to day.
My dream would be able to walk around the office barefoot and have it not even be considered weird.
Hookworm infections are definately in decline due to wearing shoes. Ill take shoes over hookworms.
I don't think anyone's feet would enjoy walking on asphalt at noon at 35°+
Plus people who lived in the wilderness famously had long lives
Not really. Socks used to be the layer of what you wore first if needed, and then wrapped your feet in animal skins as the extra outer layer we would now consider "shoes." Shoes and socks were just sort of a combined foot bag/bundle for thousands of years, and many cultures developed socks and/or shoes independently, meaning they are not a social construct if numerous cultures are inventing them for practical purposes.
I would encourage you to take a hike through Greenland barefoot and come back to me with the "humans have made our environment less friendly to bare feet" line. It is, for the most part, the exact opposite that is the case. Nature is not friendly to bare feet in the slightest hence why humans have been wearing shoes long before recorded history.
The natural world is pretty unfriendly to bare feet, too.
Feet will naturally build up thick, tough, resilient calluses in natural environments. There have been some interesting studies done on this topic with indigenous groups.
Which indigenous groups don't wear shoes? Genuinely curious. In North America, moccasins are pretty well-known. I understand that part of the need stems from climate though. I'm more curious about what terrain an indigenous group might live in that can be safe to live barefoot.