Prehistoric Man

From the earliest times, men and women have needed to move themselves and their possessions from place to place. Hunters needed to follow the herds of animals that they killed for food. When man tamed their own animals, they often moved on to find fresh grazing. For very early man, the only answer was to travel by foot.

Later, they used sledges made of flat pieces of wood on wooden runners. In Denmark, some of these sledge runners that are 8,000 years old have been preserved by peaty soil and can still be seen today. To move heavier loads, such as slabs of stone for building, large gangs of men pulled sledges on log rollers slowly along. To cross water, they used floating logs, bundles of reed or blown up animal skins. The first boats were dugout canoes and rafts made by tying logs together.