What were the ancient means of transportation like?

Most early humans lived by the river. Dealing with water a lot, they gradually discovered the buoyancy of water, and some light things did not sink in the water. In order to meet the needs of fishing and crossing the river, people created the earliest water tool-canoe with simple tools. This time is probably the Stone Age. Some scholars found some ancient paddles in Maglemos, Denmark, and found that it was around 8000 BC after analysis. In Yorkshire, England, someone also unearthed a wooden paddle dating from 7500 BC from a clay charcoal. This paddle must be used to row a hollow canoe in the middle. Its age is about 6300 BC. In China, the ancient raft unearthed in Zhejiang 1956 was identified as a Paleolithic relic 4,000 years ago. The history of rafts can be traced back to prehistoric times. The manufacture and application of canoes is an important event in human history. With canoes, people's activities have expanded and they can cross the water to open up a new world.

The early canoes were primitive. Primitive humans burned huge tree trunks or made hollow canoes with stone axes. Although it is simple, it can be done greatly. A canoe was found in Lincolnshire, England, with a length of16m and a width of1.5m..

Rafts and wooden boats: the embryonic form of modern ships

For primitive people who lack advanced tools, it is too complicated to make canoes. People also tie trunks, bamboo poles, reeds and so on. Make a raft, or make a raft out of animal skins and float on the water. Rafts are much safer than canoes, with convenient materials and simple manufacture. However, the performance of this kind of raft is not very good, and the stability is very poor when encountering rapids. People began to look for other things to replace it.

In the Bronze Age, people had mastered bronze wares, and they could easily split logs into boards to build wooden boats. Archaeologists are surprised to find that these ancient wooden boats are almost identical to modern wooden boats: the outer planks are connected or overlapped to form the hull, and several cross bars are added in the middle as the "ribs" of the boat; In order to prevent water leakage, some linen, putty and the like are stuffed in the wood cracks to make them tight. It seems that the ancient shipbuilding technology is really brilliant.

Navigation: a great progress of human navigation

Wooden boats and rafts are usually propelled by paddles or paddles, but sailing with them is not satisfactory, laborious and inefficient. People are looking for a new tool, that is, sail. It is said that Gamesi, a Babylonian hero, met a ferryman who was ferrying in stagnant water while trying to cross the sea. The ferryman asked him to make a pole 18 feet long, but poor Gamesi found that even if he connected 120 poles, he could not reach the bottom of the sea. What shall we do? He found the wind blowing on the sea, so he took off his clothes, raised his arm as a mast, pulled up his clothes as a sail, and stood on the boat and blew away with the wind. This legend shows that people have realized that they can borrow popular boats, and sailing boats naturally appear.

Sailing has a history of about 6000 years. A pottery unearthed in Egypt in 40 BC painted the image of the oldest sailing boat: the front end of the boat was bent upward, and there was a small square sail in the front of the boat. But this kind of ship has a disadvantage that it can only use the downwind, not the wind blowing from the side. However, people are the cleverest after all. In the long history, our ancestors improved the structure and style of sailboats step by step and constantly improved their performance. The ship is getting bigger and bigger, with more sails and masts, and the speed is getting faster and faster. On the water, sailboats gradually dominated the world. /kloc-from the middle of 0/5th century to19th century, sailing was at its peak. /kloc-At the beginning of the 5th century, Zheng He, a China navigator, made a huge fleet of voyages to the West, all of which were made up of sailboats. 1492 When Columbus led the Spanish fleet to the West Indies, the Santa Maria was a three-masted sailboat with a length of 28 meters and a displacement of about 200 tons. In the history of maritime development, the ancient Greeks and Romans along the Mediterranean coast, the Vikings, the best maritime nation in Northern Europe, and the people of China all made great contributions. The last peak of sailing development was1American flying shear sailing in the mid-9th century. After that, steamboats rose and sailboats gradually declined.

Wheels: the greatest invention of mankind

In ancient times, people had to carry the harvest of their collection and hunting. The earliest means of land transportation was wooden sticks, which were carried by two people or one person. On the Sumerian stone carvings excavated about 5,000 years ago, there are images of two people carrying deer to death with wooden sticks. Later, people switched to sledge, which is actually a kind of board that slides and drags on the ground. This kind of sliding friction resistance is great, which often causes a lot of inconvenience because of uneven road surface. So people put logs under the boards and let the skids roll on them, which greatly reduced the resistance. But this method is also very laborious, and it is often necessary to put logs while pulling sleds. People came up with another way to fix the log under the sled, which saved a lot of trouble. This log fixed under the sled is the prototype of the rear wheel.

Don't underestimate this invention. It is exaggerated to say that the wheel has changed the whole human history, because the wheel is not only used in transportation, but also in many scientific and technological fields. For example, if a machine has no round gear, it is definitely not a machine. The appearance of wheels has made human transportation take a big step forward.

Sumer and China cars

Many scholars believe that the automobile was first created by Sumerians in the 35th century BC. Separating the shaft and wheel from the log drum is not only the process of further forming a sled, but also the obvious difference between a sled and a cart. Sumerians first completed this step. China is also the first country in history to use cars. According to legend, cars appeared when Emperor Huang fought Chiyou 4600 years ago. About 4000 years ago, a tribe named Xue was famous for making cars. Many ancient books in China recorded the story of Xizhong making cars. At present, a model of a Shang car is displayed in the Chinese History Museum. It is an exquisite two-wheeled vehicle with one axle, one balance, two yokes and one charm, and its structure is complete, which embodies the height of Chinese car-making technology at that time.

China's ancient car-making technology has always been more advanced than that of westerners. In the Zhou Dynasty in China, grease was used as a lubricant for vehicles, and four-wheeled vehicles appeared in the Han Dynasty in China, more than a century before the West. During the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period, an economical and practical means of transportation-unicycle appeared. This kind of car can still be seen now. Its advantages are light, small, occupying no space and taking any road, especially suitable for narrow paths. In the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, when Zhuge Liang came out of Qishan six times, Puyuan made a "wooden cow" to transport grain for the Shu army. According to many scholars' research, this "wooden cow" is a kind of unicycle. In ancient China, there were drum cars invented by Zhang Heng, south guide cars, eight-wheeled cars and twelve-wheeled cars invented by Ma Jun in the Three Kingdoms period, and so on. The development of ancient cars in China has become one of the most attractive parts of China culture.

Riding and serving cattle: the rise and fall of carriages

Cars were originally driven by people. When people have been able to tame cattle, horses and other livestock, people use livestock to pull them. Animal-drawn vehicles have larger load, faster speed and longer mileage than rickshaws. Driving a two-wheeled vehicle alone is the original rhyme form of an animal-drawn vehicle, and then it is driven and towed by two or four horses. The horse driving is called a horse, and the horses towed on both sides are called horses. But in ancient Egypt, people invented a kind of yoke, which was put on the shoulders of livestock. By making bow-shaped parts and adding cushions, the pressure on the rope was reduced. In the long historical process, the carriage has gradually become the most used means of transportation on land. In the war, the carriage has also become a powerful weapon, because of its rapidity and strong impact, it has become the ace teacher of all arms. During the Shang and Zhou Dynasties in China, the military strength of a country was even measured by the number of war carriages.

In Europe, the Roman Empire generally used carriages to transport mail. With the development of commerce and the gradual development of carriage roads, almost all the transportation tasks on land are undertaken by carriages. During the Middle Death of Europe,19th century, carriage was widely used. In the 20th century, the carriage changed the previous wooden and iron structure and adopted rubber tires and ball bearings, which coexisted with modern vehicles, railways, trains and automobiles. However, long-distance carriage transportation has gradually been replaced by railway transportation, and short-distance land transportation has also encountered strong competition from cars. The carriage gradually withdrew from the historical stage.

China specialty: sedan chair

Sedan chair is a tool that people carry back and forth. In the west, the vehicle for people to walk is generally a carriage, but in China, the sedan chair has become the most basic means of transportation. The motive force of this tool is people, so often only those rich and powerful people can afford to hire sedan chairs. In China, the sedan chair has become a symbol of people's status and status.

The structure of the sedan chair is very simple. Two simple bamboo poles and a cold chair are an elevator; Complex, make a beautiful wooden cage with cloth and boards, and there are stools for people to sit in. The sedan chair has a simple structure, but many rules. For example, the more people sit in sedan chairs, the more distinguished sedan chair users are. The emperor's sedan chair is not fixed, sometimes twelve, sometimes sixteen, crowding round.

The origin of sedan chair cannot be verified, but it is generally believed that this tool may have come from a mountain village. Climbing mountains is extremely inconvenient, especially for those who are not strong enough, so they hire people to carry them up. When this form arrived in the city, it evolved into a sedan chair.