Wikijunior:Transport/History

Land transport without wheels; horseback, sledge, sleigh and a hammock

• The first known transportation was walking, humans began walking upright two million years ago with the emergence of Homo Erectus (meaning upright man). Their predecessors, the Australopithecus did not walk upright as habitually. Bipedal specializations are found in Australopithecus fossils from 4.2-3.9 million years ago, although Sahelanthropus may have walked on two legs as early as seven million years ago.
• 7000BCE earliest known shoes although likely to have been in use much earlier.
• 6000BCE dugout canoes invented.
• Oxen are thought to have first been harnessed and put to work around 4000 BC.
• Horses were domesticated around 3500BCE.

Wheel

Early wheeled transport before the internal combustion engine

• The wheel was invented originally for pottery, as the potters wheel was invented in 4200 BCE. It was the axle and wheel invented in 3500 BCE that revolutionised transportation.
• 3000 BCE - Austronesians construct catamarans and outriggers. In the Mediterranean, galleys were developed about 3000 BCE.
• The wheel and axle combined with domesticated oxen originally and later domesticated horses led to carts being mentioned in literature as early as 2000BCE. Chariots were used in the Indus Valley civilisation in 1900 BCE. Chariots were in use in warfare in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The latter also developed carriages (or coaches) and wagons for civilian transport. In the 7th to 8th Century use of the horse collar was widespread across Europe.

Ancient transport in antiquity lasted largely unchanged for centuries until the modern era following the Industrial Revolution.

• The first public transportation predated mechanisation with horse-drawn omnibuses travelling bus routes in Paris in 1662. In 1783 the first manned flight was made in a hot-air balloon by the Montgolfier brothers, also in France.