What was the first means of transportation?

In primitive times, human muscles were the only means of transporting anything. In time, man tamed certain animals and taught them to carry riders or other loads. The ox, the donkey, the water buffalo, the horse and the camel were used by early man in various parts of the world for transportation.

Afterwards, man tried to find some way by which animals could transport more goods. So he developed crude sledges and drags to hitch to his animals. Flat bottom sledges were good only on snow. So man developed the rolling drag for regular ground. Rolling drag consisted of sections of logs used as rollers under a drag or platform. When the platform was pulled, the logs under it rolled. This made the work easier than pulling the platform along the bare ground.

After a long time, someone thought of cutting a slice from the end of a log and making a hole in its center. This was a wheel, one of mans greatest discoveries. When two wheels were joined by an axle and the axle was fastened to a platform man had made a crude cart.

Solid wooden wheels were heavy and clumsy and they were down quickly. In the course of thousands of years, man improved the wheel. He made them lighter and more efficient by using separate hubs and spokes and rims. He used copper or iron to make them more durable. At last he developed rubber tyres which are still being improved, time to time, by the scientists.