'World's oldest snowshoe' dating back 6,000 years is found in professor's office

It was found 13 years ago in the melting snow of an Alpine glacier

The shoe is made from a 1.5m length of birch wood (Bolzano regional government/Roman Clara)

A shoe discovered in a professor's office has been found to be more than 6,000 years old.

The wooden shoe was first found in the melting snow of a glacier in the Italian Dolomite mountains by cartographer Simone Bartolini in 2003.

He displayed it in his office at the Military Geographic Institute in Florence as a memento, thinking it once belonged to a 19th century farmer.

Its real age was only revealed after he mentioned it to an archaeologist colleague, the Local reports.

Carbon-dating by two different labs has found the shoe dates back between 3800-3700 BC.

According to the test results, the shoe is 600 years older than Ötzi the ice age man, who was found 7km away in 1991.

It is made of a 1.5m length of birch wood, bent and lashed into an oval shape.

The mummy of an iceman named Otzi, discovered on 1991 in the Italian Schnal Valley glacier, is displayed at the Archaeological Museum of Bolzano on February 28, 2011 during an official presentation of the reconstrution (Andrea Solero/AFP/Getty Images)

Catrin Marzoli, the director of the South Tyrol office of archaeological monuments, told Suedtirol News: "It is the oldest snowshoe in the world.

"The glacier has given us an exceptional testimony.

"It indicates that as early as the late Neolithic period people with proper equipment were present on the alpine watershed at an altitude of over three thousand metres."