These Pants Were Pulled From an 1857 Shipwreck. Are They the World’s Oldest Jeans?

Earlier this month, a pair of pants recovered from an 1857 shipwreck sold for $114,000 at auction.

Experts with the auction house, Holabird Western Americana Collections, think they were once a pair of men’s work pants, possibly worn by a miner. The original color of the fabric is unclear, but after spending more than a century in a passenger’s trunk at the bottom of the sea, the pants are now stained black and brown. The fly has five buttons. Read more at Smithsonian.