Human Transport: From The Wolf To The Model T
Movement is the key to human progress. Humans largely stayed put for most of our existence over the past 50,000 years. There have been some mass migrations, usually due to climate changes, exhausted food resources or conflict, but in the main where we were born, we stayed and died. On a day-to-day basis, humans huddled in small settlements and rarely ventured a few miles from home to forage, hunt or plunder neighbours. Feet and fatigue limit the range of a human body to about 30 kilometres per day, but that’s a very expensive use of energy and can’t be sustained for long. Staying in one place limited human development for thousands of years until we found ways to cover more distance with less energy. New discoveries, new foods, languages, metals and conflicts all came about when humans began to venture far from their origins. It wasn’t until an unlikely relationship between human and beast resulted in a faster, less energy-sapping form of transport, facilitating long-range expeditions. We have our four-legged friend, the wolf, to thank for what would ultimately evolve into the modern car we know today.
Survival is the great inventor. The domestication of the wolf into sleigh-pulling machines was the start of the first journeys farther than human legs could walk in a day. Archaeologists have discovered that it was in the earliest alliance between man and beast, as far back as 15,000 years, that modern transport has its origins. In the far Siberian north settlements have been discovered that are over 9,000 years old. There, 500 kilometres into the Zhokhov Island, dog bone analysis proves they had been bred for sleigh pulling. Being able to cover long distances by dog sleigh meant the inhabitants could track down and follow fast-moving reindeer herds, on which they would have relied for food and clothing. Overland transport routes soon developed, and settlements began to interact. Bartering, tool making and weaponry followed and then, so began human progress. Dog power ruled for thousands of years and so did ox power, then horsepower and soon kilowatt power.
The car took a long time to emerge. Before four legs could become four wheels the least applauded invention had to be made. The wooden axle. The axle is more important than the wheel. Without a perfectly circular axle to sit within the centre of a set of wheels, smooth, reliable transport is impossible. It took until the bronze age before sufficiently precise tools could be crafted to enable wood to be carved and smoothed to ensure a low friction gliding surface. The wheel (or rather the wheel-axle partnership) is relatively new, it only came on the scene around 4,000bc. The wheel has only featured in the past 6,000 of modern man’s 50,000-year history. With the wheel came real movement of people and goods. The sleigh was outdone by wheels on dirt tracks and then modern paved roads, pulled by horse for 5,000 years before the first steam engine was born.
Thomas Newcomen is credited with the invention of the first steam engine, built to pump water from coal mines in 1711, based on a 1606, Spanish design. What began as a way to extract coal from mines more efficiently soon gave rise to the industrial revolution. A further refinement by Scotsman, James Watt instigated multitudes of engine designs, including the locomotive engine in 1802. Exploiting energy-dense coal, the steam train spread across the globe and for over 150 years was the king of transport. Steam began to be replaced from the 1950s by diesel and electric trains, the electric revolution began sooner for rail than it has for the road.
In 1886 Carl Benz successfully perfected earlier Belgian and Italian internal combustion designs to produce a workable two-stroke gasoline engine. At first, his machine was seen as a noisy, impracticable mode of transport. With a small range, limited fuel tank, lack of filling stations and smooth paved roads, the first automobile looked like a novelty for the few and an unlikely horse replacement for the many. The horse has a range of 80+ kilometres per day, early internal combustion cars came with range anxiety, not dissimilar to electric cars today. It took his wife, Berta, to prove the viability of the car by driving over 100kms in 12 hours to visit her parents. The story of her adventure soon spread and the age of horse travel began its decline. What began as a slow trickle for the rich, with limited infrastructure, soon went exponential and within 20 years mass production of automobiles had begun with the Ford Model T.
