Module 1.

1 – Manpower, Animal Power, and Wind Power

Transportation is the movement or conveying of persons and goods from one location
to another.

Tracing the historical development of human’s methods of transporting goods and

people would take voluminous book to record all the innovations made by man from
ancient time to the present-day age. Man’s need to travel dates back as early as
the creation of human beings. Biblical passages alleged that when Adam and Eve ate
the fruit of the forbidden tree, they were sent out by God from Paradise of Eden.
Since then, the human race expanded and our ancestors constantly move from one
place to another to enable them to survive and others for various reasons. Other
biblical passages mentioned that Moses was chosen by God to speak to the Pharaoh,
King of Egypt to let His children out of Egypt. So, the children of Israel were
gloriously brought out from Egypt to serve God.
Soon, others became nomadic. They constantly migrate from one place to another
according to their own detailed knowledge of exploitable resources.
The term nomad, from the Greek, “to pasture,” was originally used to refer to
pastoralists-groups that migrate in an established pattern to find pasture lands
for their domestic livestock. However, the term has since been generalized to
include all non-settled populations, of which there are three types.

1. The first type comprises foraging populations who wander in search of their
food. It is estimated that 99% of all humanity once lived in this way.
2. The second type, the most significant numerically and historically, comprises
the pastoral nomads who move with their families, belongings, and herds of cattle,
camel, sheep, or goats through an annual cycle of pastures whose availability is
determined by the alteration of hot and cold or wet and dry seasons. and
3. The third type comprises of gypsies, tinkers, and similar itinerants in urban
and complex societies.

What worth noting is; how man traveled during the ancient period. It is believed
that early human being traveled to places by foot, carrying their loads on their
backs or on their heads, while others pulled crude sleds. They used every means to
make their transportation with the least time and effort.

Various Ancient Modes of transportation:

A. Manpower.
Early man, who had no domesticated animals, carried his own burdens. More so today,
manpower is important in transportation in many parts of the world.

1. Walking (travelling by foot) – man first used the power of his own feet in
travelling while a load is either carried or dragged. Coincidentally, the English
word “pedestrian” was coined from the Latin word “pedester” which means to travel
by foot.
2. Carrying pole – in China and other parts of the Far East, the carrying pole,
balanced on one shoulder is a popular carrying device. On islands of the Pacific,
the ends of the pole are supported by two men, with goods suspended from the pole
in between.
3. Back load and tumpline – in Subtemala, pots are carried on a wooden framework
supported by a tumpline across the forehead. In Andes, the load is held on the back
by a strap passing over the chest.
4. Sledge on rollers – the moving of heavy burdens was to place them on sledge
which rested on a series of rollers.
5. Sledge on runners – a simple sledge, probably man-drawn was in use at the end
of the Old Stone age in northern Europe, as evidenced by fragments of wooden
runners which survived.
6. Travois – this travois, as the pole arrangement called, serves as a platform
on which the burdens are placed. The platform or cross-beam poles are then dragged
by humans or animals.

B. Animal Power.
The domestication of animals greatly increased the potential power available for
transportation. Pack animals were introduced as conveyances mainly to save labor. A
man can tend several pack animals moving together, each of which (except dogs) ca
carry more than he usually can.

Some of the common animals used by human beings since the ancient time:
1. Ox – cattle, which were first domesticated in Mesopotamia, were used as draft
animals to draw war chariots. In some parts of Africa, they are used as pack
animals and for riding.
2. Reindeer – these were first domesticated in Siberia in the beginning of the
Christian era. In the Altai Mountains, they were ridden with saddles. Elsewhere,
they draw sledges somewhat like the dog sledges of the Far North.
3. Dog – the first animal domesticated, is too slight to carry heavy load. The
plain Indians sometimes packed light loads on dogs’ backs, and piled goods on a
travois which the dogs dragged. In the Far North, the dogs team drawing sledges are
the chief means of transportation; and in parts of Europe, the dogs are used to
draw small carts.
4. Donkey – the first domesticated in the Middle East. Donkey caravans carry
goods between the cities of Southwest Asia and Egypt and the donkey is still the
chief beast of burden among the farmers of the near East, the Mediterranean Area
and Mexico, where it was introduced from Spain.
5. Llama – in Pre-Columbian America, the Llama was the only new world animal
other than the dog capable of domestication for use in transport.
6. Elephant – the Carthaginians used African elephant in their war against Rome.
In India, elephants were formerly use in war and are still employed to some extent
for ceremonial processions and big game hunting. In Burma and Thailand, these huge
animals are widely used in the lumber industry.
7. Horse – around 2,000 B.C., horse drawn chariots appeared in southwest Asia
and 1,000 years later, the Persians arrived with cavalry which gave mobility and
power to the German tribes who invaded Europe and to the Central Asian conqueror
Genghis Khan.
8. Camel – there are two kinds of camel, the two-humped Bactrian camel of
Central Asia and the one-humped dromedary of Arabia have long been used for
transport. The Bactrian camel has plodded along the caravan routes between China
and Iran for at least 2,000 years. The dromedary, which has less endurance but it,
is fleeter and special fast-paced riding camel, is bred by the Arab nomads.
9. Yak – a long-haired type of cattle that lives at high altitudes on the
Tibetan plateau and is ridden and used as a pack animal at heights were horses and
ordinary animal could not survive.

C. Wind Power.
Man realized the energy from the mass of moving air and learned to utilized such
powers to lift rather than to drag. This paved way to invention of air lifted
transportation vessels.

1. Ancient Chinese Kite – kites have flown as a popular past time in the Far
East since the beginning of the history. Based on a Korean tradition, the kite was
first used for transport when a Korean general employed one in bridge building. By
means of a kite, a cord was conveyed across the river where heavier ropes were
fastened and finally the bridge cable.
2. Da Vinci’s Ornithopter – the great renaissance artist, scientist and
engineer, Leonardo da Vinci, made a study of the flight of the birds and his
notebooks sketched a number of ornithopter (a.k.a. orthopter) which derives its
principal support and propelling from flapping wings like those of a bird.
3. Montgolfier Balloon – the Montgolfier brothers of France Joseph Michel and
Jacques Entienne have successfully released several balloons when they proposed to
use two condemned prisoners for the first ascent with passengers. Pilatre de
Rozier, a natural historian protested this and claimed the honor himself. In 1783,
he and Marquis d’ arlanoes became the first men to make a free balloon ascent. The
balloon constructed of linen and inflated with hot air traveled 9,000 yards and
remained in the air for 20 minutes.
4. Siemens’ Rocket Plane – Ernst Werner Von Siemens who later achieved fame as
an electric industrialist, in 1847 designed rocket plane which was to be propelled
by the explosive force of gunpowder.
5. Lilienthal glider – Otto Lilienthal, a German inventor who also made a study
of the flight of birds and experimented with ornithopters, going so far as to build
a model ornithopter. In 1891, he made the first of a number of a glider flights
which were to exert a profound influence on the development of aviation.
6. Santos Dumont’s Airship – one of the pioneers of lighter-than-air craft was
Alberto Santos Dumont, a Brazilian who experimented with the steam-powered balloons
in Paris. He made his first balloon ascent in 1897 and in 1898 completed the
construction of his first airship. In 1901, he made a 30-minute round trip flight
between St. Louis and the Eiffel Tower.
7. Wright Brothers’ Flying Machine – Orville and Wilbur Wright began studying
the problems of heavier-than-air flight. They built biplane kite. They flew
successfully at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903. By 1909, airplanes
became sufficiently accepted to justify beginning commercial manufacture of the
machine.
8. Lindbergh’s Spirit of St. Louis – following the initial flight of the Wright
brothers’ airplane, the development of aviation was rapid. The first airmail was
delivered in 1911 and World War I gave an impetus to plane design and the training
of pilots. During the 1920’s, many new records were set. A feat which particularly
captured popular imagination was the first solo flight from New York to Paris, made
by Capt. Charles A. Lindbergh in May 1927 in a plane especially built for the
flight, the Spirit of St. Louis.

Air transportation offers travelling in lesser time but the cost is beyond reach of
most common people. Notwithstanding the inaccessibility of most places if
travelling is done through the air even by water transportation. With no choice
left, man is left conceiving and inventing land transportation facilities.