Prehistoric transport: People power
As ever more clues are found by archaeologists, sometimes in unexpected places, we are beginning to see more clearly how our distant ancestors managed to spread across the world. The last decade has been a lively one for discoveries and rethinking in the realms of early transport.
The first modern humans
moved on foot, so they needed to travel light. Infants would be carried. It
might occur to people, even before clothing became a necessity, to use animal
skin or interwoven lianas to make a sling to carry a baby. Timothy Taylor sees
the baby-sling as a key invention. To grow larger brains, our ancestors needed
to sacrifice the advantage of newborns who can run with the pack. Our young
continue to develop and learn for many years - a huge investment in the future
of the species. While other apes carry their young, he pictures clever Homo
sapiens contriving baby slings which freed up their arms for other
activities, while protecting the helpless infant, whose brain can continue to
grow.1T. Taylor, The Artificial Ape: How
Technology Changed the Course of Human Evolution
(2010).
Hunters would generally butcher large game where it was killed, rather than try to carry a whole beast miles back to camp.2A.K. Outram, Economic Anatomy, Element Abundance and Optimality: A New Way of Examining Hunters' Bone Transportation Choices. In: A. Millard (ed.) Proceedings of Archaeological Sciences '97, BAR International Series 939. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports (2001), pp.117 - 126. Even so it might be convenient to tie or sling game or fish from a stick or a spear, to be carried over the shoulder of one man, or between two men. A sling on a thick pole could also carry an injured comrade. Two poles with skins or lianas strung between them would make a stretcher.
Dragging firewood back to camp with smaller sticks
piled on top of a large, forked branch might suggest the the basic A-frame of
the travois, used by Plains
Indians of North America to drag loads. One example has been found from
prehistoric Europe. The same A-frame laid flat and pushed downhill over grass
or snow could have originated the concept of the sledge (also called a sled or
sleigh) - a platform on runners. Sledges are mentioned in some of the earliest
records in the world - clay tablets from Uruk in Mesopotamia. A
highly-decorated ceremonial sledge was found in the tomb of Queen Pu-abi of
Ur.3P. Pétrequin, A.-M. Pétrequin, R.-M. Arbogast,
D. Marechal, A. Viellet, Travois et jougs néolithiques du lac de Chalain à
Fontenu (Jura, France), in P. Pétrequin, R. Arbogast, A.-M. Pétrequin, S. van
Willigen, M. Bailly (eds.), Premiers Chariots, Premiers Araires: La
diffusion de la traction animale en Europe pendant les IVe et IIIe millénaires
avant notre ère, CRA Monographie 29 (2006), p. 87-105; M. A. Littauer
and J. H. Crouwel, ed. Peter Raulwing, Selected Writings on Chariots and
other Early Vehicles, Riding and Harness (2002), p.333.
Both ideas probably date far back into prehistory. In Finland sledge runners
have been found dating back to around 3-4000 BC and in one case to c. 7976
BC.4T. Edgren, Den Förhistoriska Tiden, in M.
Norrback (ed.), Finlands Historia 1, (2nd edn.
1993). Since horses were extinct in the Americas before
re-introduction by Europeans, the travois was dragged by dogs, once these had
been domesticated. Dogs are still used in the far north of Europe to pull
sledges, as are reindeer. Originally people had to rely on their own muscles to
drag loads.
Skis in the Old World and snowshoes in North America were a useful aid to getting about over snow. Rock carvings showing men on skis have been found in Norway, Sweden and Russian Karelia. Remarkably, some ancient skis have survived. The oldest skis and sledge runners ever discovered were preserved in peat bogs near Lake Sindor in Russia. They date to around 6,000 BC. Skiing in the Altai Mountains was recorded in a Chinese manuscript over 2,000 years ago. People there still make their own skis.5G.M. Burov, Some Mesolithic wooden artifacts from the site of Vis I in the European North East of the U.S.S.R, in C. Bonsall (ed.), The Mesolithic in Europe (1989), pp. 391-401; M.Lund, Skiing in the shadow of Ghengis Khan, Skiing Heritage, June 2009, pp. 32-34.
Notes
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- T. Taylor, The Artificial Ape: How Technology Changed the Course of Human Evolution (2010).
- A.K. Outram, Economic Anatomy, Element Abundance and Optimality: A New Way of Examining Hunters' Bone Transportation Choices. In: A. Millard (ed.) Proceedings of Archaeological Sciences '97, BAR International Series 939. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports (2001), pp.117 - 126.
- P. Pétrequin, A.-M. Pétrequin, R.-M. Arbogast, D. Marechal, A. Viellet, Travois et jougs néolithiques du lac de Chalain à Fontenu (Jura, France), in P. Pétrequin, R. Arbogast, A.-M. Pétrequin, S. van Willigen, M. Bailly (eds.), Premiers Chariots, Premiers Araires: La diffusion de la traction animale en Europe pendant les IVe et IIIe millénaires avant notre ère, CRA Monographie 29 (2006), p. 87-105; M. A. Littauer and J. H. Crouwel, ed. Peter Raulwing, Selected Writings on Chariots and other Early Vehicles, Riding and Harness (2002), p.333.
- T. Edgren, Den Förhistoriska Tiden, in M. Norrback (ed.), Finlands Historia 1, (2nd edn. 1993).
- G.M. Burov, Some Mesolithic wooden artifacts from the site of Vis I in the European North East of the U.S.S.R, in C. Bonsall (ed.), The Mesolithic in Europe (1989), pp. 391-401; M.Lund, Skiing in the shadow of Ghengis Khan, Skiing Heritage, June 2009, pp. 32-34.
