Chapter 1 EARLY TRANSPORTATION Early humans relied on walking to get from place to place With the advent of agriculture domes ticated animals provided a source of food and cloth ing Eventually people saw greater potential in some animal species which they harnessed to provide faster and easier travel In the Middle East camels have been used as transportation for thousands of years They are often called the ships of the desert because they provide such an ideal form of transportation as they are able to go without water for days and can carry people or freight Other animals were domesticated for trans portation in different regions Early peoples also found that putting heavy loads on sledges enabled them to slide heavier objects along the ground with less effort than needed to carry 66
Camels have been used for thousands of years in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East to carry people and goods The animals are well suited for their desert environment 7
The Evolution of Transportation Technology them Ultimately they put the sledges on tree limbs as rollers which led to the development of wheels on an axle USING ANIMALS FOR TRANSIT In ancient times people began experimenting with domesticated animals to help carry passengers and goods Dogs were domesticated at least fifteen thou sand years ago being used both as guards and as a food source At some point people began to use teams of dogs to carry loads a tradition that is still seen in dogsledding today Camels were used in ancient Africa and Asia to transport people and their belongings Domesticated horses were used to pull chariots long before they were saddled for individual riders Horses became common in Egypt around 1700 BCE when they were brought over from Syria Horses could travel faster than camels but were also more prone to exhaustion in the desert heat Relatives of the camel the llama and alpaca have been used in South America for thousands of 8
Early Transportation years to help transport goods Meanwhile elephants were used in Asia and Africa for transport for hauling logs and for warfare The larger African elephants were more temperamental and harder to control In the third century BCE the Carthaginian general Han nibal invaded Italy by crossing the Alps with an army that included thirty-seven elephants After several battles in difficult terrain however only his elephant survived INVENTING THE WHEEL Logs were used as rollers long before the invention of the wheel The first wheels then were likely cut from logs It is not known exactly when the wheel first came into existence but a Sumerian artifact from around 3500 BCE shows a sledge with wheels and the Mesopotamians were using the wheel to spin pottery about the same time As the technology improved over time wheels were attached to a fixed axle and could make easier turns Around 2000 BCE Egyptian chariots featured a spoked wheel that was more sophisticated than a 9
