ABSTRACT
Humankind is mobile, and has been since the days of hunting and gathering. Once people began producing tools and foodstuffs, accumulating surplus and tradable inventories, methods by which those goods could be delivered to their customers had to be devised. The transportation of raw materials and finished goods, food, animals, and people were essential to survival and vital to a stable and growing economy. For these reasons, humankind devised ways to move these things from one place to another and over long distances. This chapter will discuss the ways in which early peoples resolved the problem of transportation and the timely movement of people and commodities across land and over water.
