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Again, according to Tyler Beard, the answer is 'neither'. And I agree with him.

The cowboy boots, like any item pertaining to fashion is a product of 'evolution' wherein it is improved, expounded and expanded with each incarnation.

If we really look at it, the Huns might be credited for the first recorded history of 'high heels' in shoes, but, shoemaking has been around for millenia, about 3500 years.

So was Atilla The Hun's shoes the progenitor of cowboy boots? Maybe, but it will be so different from the cowboy boots of today, we will not even recognize it.

The Northampton Museum in England has one of the largest collections of historical footwear in the world.

One of them, a pair made circa 1630 have high tops, pointed shoes and 2-inch stacked heels.

Military styles had a great influence on boots during that time also, although for practical reasons the tops of boots gradually began to come down from the thigh high buckets of the cavaliers.

In 1815, Arthur Wellsley, First Duke of Wellington, defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. In the wake of his victory and his ensuing popularity, Wellington boots became THE style.

The major difference in these boots from previous styles was that the heels were low cut and the tops were only calf high.

At Northampton there is a pair of dress wellingtons made in 1817. They are a four piece boot--vamp, counter cover, front and back tops--with beaded side seams (the same layout as a modern cowboy boot).

So, from Atilla, The Hun, to the Stuart cavaliers, then life in the plantation of the South, a move to the American west, a jump back to Europe for the Duke of Wellington, and then back in Chisholm Trail -- the cowboy boots was born.

And like the adaptable Texas longhorns which spurred the cowboy life, the cowboy boots is an adaptation to a lifesytle.

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