History of transportation questions

[markolitos]

I'm writing an essay on the historical evolution of transportation(from packhorse to airplane) and have some questions?

1. When did man start riding horses( all sites i check show me different times like between 3000-2000BC )?

2. Who or what civilisation was first to use the chariot (also when was it invented)?

3. When was the carriage invented and by whom( i've heard the romans did )?

4. When was the first road built?

5. When was saddle/stirrups first used?

6. Finally, when did man start using boats?
Any help is apreciated!

[Phoenix]

i believe most of your dates are going to be in pre-history and therefore very very vague

horses... as eaerly as 3000bc, but i couldn't say who... since about the time man domesticated animals lol

chariots were first encountered by the egyptions during the Hyksos invasion, around 2700BC. the hyksos are believed to have been some form of assyrian culture... asian definately, from around the mesoptamia area. i would hazard a guess and say the chariot developed around there.

carriage or cart? the romans used wheeled carts pulled by horses, but packtrains were more common. i do not recall the romans using carriages though, i think Litters were the order of the day

this one may be a far more modern medieval invention.

first road...
define road... a defined regularly travelled track... or an actual paved/cobbled road through the countryside... if the latter - roman

boats... hmmmm... again, prehistory. hunter gatherer level settlements situated on lakes large rivers or the sea probably noticed the floating properties of wood, and constructed small one man craft.

i know the egyptions were using full sized river squadrons of warboats again as far back as 2700bc. the early phoenician traders had ocean going craft... but thats much later...

[markolitos]

Thanks for the answers!

Let me put nr 3 like this: the kind pulled by horse in the smash hit movie king arthur?

Also the last one: when did man start using boats in large scale(trading and transportation), and i guess you answered my question with phoenicians right?

[Hakkapeliitta]

The first boats were possibly used by people who inhabitated New Guinea and Australia ca. 35 000 years ago. Really might have been just ferries or so. Oldest evidence about boats or ships around the Mediterranean are some 13 000 years old.

[Bovril]

1. Horses were domesticated before they were ridden. First evidence of ridden horses comes from two places at once, the Near East and India. Both are assosiated with invading Indo-European groups (Aryans in India, Mittani in Near East). This dates to the early/mid 2nd millenium B.C.

2. Chariots were first used by the sumerians. Invented at the start of the 3rd millenium B.C. origianally drawn by onagers (an extinct species of ***, the Roman catapult takes its name from them). Chariots were first drawn by horses in the early/mid 2nd millenium.

3. Dunno.

4. First wooden causeways are attested to in Irish swamps inthe Neolithic period. These seem to have been chiefly ceremonial. The first extensive road network was built by the Persians between Sardis and Pasargadae and the other towns of the Persian heartland. It was expanded to cover most of the empire. Earlier empires tended to use riverine transport more.

5. Saddles are as old as horse riding, though they have develloped considerably through history. Stirrups are much later. They were not used in Europe untill the dark ages and were introduced from central asia.

6. Dunno. At least Neolithic. Probably impossible to say. Obsidian trade patterns in the med. imply their use going back to the early Neolithic, though actual examples are later.


P.S. Phoenix. The Hyksos came from the levant, and arrived in Egypt during the 2nd intermediate period (early second milenium B.C.)