What wheelbarrows can teach us about world history 

As a former farm boy and current construction worker, I've pushed a lot of wheelbarrows around in my day. Something to keep in mind: Even modern wheelbarrows with rubber tires absolutely suck when you aren't operating on level ground without any obstructions. Uphill for any kind of distance? No go. Downhill for any kind of distance? No go. Little rocks scattered around? Not till you clear them all. Now put a wooden wheel on it and all those problems just got so much worse. You would NEED an established path to operate it. I imagine you couldn't even run it on cobblestone.

"been thinking a lot about wheelbarrows lately" is probably the best opening to a video I've heard

Historians: *considers dozens of complex social variables* Laborers: *remembers how much they hate those stupid wheelbarrows*

i think rubber wheel is actually what makes a modern wheel barrow so good there's apparently a cult following of the thing

Reminds me that before the late 1980s, most suitcases didn't have wheels on them and people had to carry everything by lifting it off the floor.

A Premodernist upload is considered a landmark moment in my life.

My family still owns a wooden wheelbarrow, which we use as a decoration element in our garden. And man, that thing is heavy! The advantage of the wheelbarrow becomes far less obvious if you think about how much extra weight you add, compared to a basket. I believe our perception of the advantages of a wheelbarrow greatly depends on the advantages of (cheaply available) modern materials like steel, aluminium and rubber; but also optimization towards more ergonomic design.

In our village in Azerbaijan around 30 years ago, we (and esp. women) used to carry stuff around on our heads, most of the time, although we had wheelbarrows. As for the reason we didn't use the wheelbarrow very much, there were a myriad of rationales. For one thing, families would have like 15 members and only one or two wheelbarrows, if that. Second is the wheelbarrow has a weight and you really need to pass a certain critical load to justify using it (and these are modern thin aluminum lightweight barrows with rubber tires, I only can guess how heavy and unwieldy a wooden one would be with wooden tires; I'd imagine very impractical unless for very urgent needs). Third, it was kind of a chore to go and bring it for every little thing or for short paths when you were going to use it once or twice not more. Also when it rained and the ground was muddy or when you were not using well-trodden paths it'd be more of a nuisance than being handy. And most paths were rough, uneven and not well-trodden. All in all, it was used quite rarely, mostly for moving grain, or dried dung for fuel or when there was some construction in a certain place. I think if you didn't have a reason to not think about these constraints you could just deduce these things without ever seeing a village or a wheelbarrow.

The other thing to consider is how much we take fabrication for granted nowadays Every time in the premodern era that you would have wanted a wheelbarrow, you'd need to MAKE A WHEELBARROW Which requires more steps than placing a basket on your head

Quite frankly, wheelbarrows require much more *arm strength* than head carrying, especially over rough & uneven terrain. I do a lot of farm work, and I hate using wheelbarrows and have literally taught myself how to balance large baskets on my head for this reason. It's easier to *think* one way of doing things would be better until you're actually there, doing it.

The major downside of wheelbarrows is that, in order to use one, you need to _have_ one. Heads, on the other hand, are standard issue.

your ability to contextualize human development in an easy to understand way is unmatched. you're like the Carl Sagan of historians. love your videos!

this screams of anti-wheelbarrow propaganda straight from the marketing departments of Big Horse and Carriage

As an American living in West Africa for about a year and a half (where they have wheelbarrows, but most people, snd especially women, still tote most things on their heads), one of the major reasons wheelbarrows arent used more often here is the cost. The cost of anything manufactured is super high compared to the cost of labor (which is super cheap). The most common place I see both being used is hauling water from the closest eater pump to your house, so here I think the biggest barrier is cost. Some will also use bicycles or even motorcycles and occasionally motorcars to do this now as well. Also, while wheelbarrows are good for certain scenarios like construction (which is the typical use case here) or hauling over short distances, they're not that practical for many other scenarios, especially over dirt roads that get washed out every year during the rainy season.

I was helping a friend with some yardwork, moving a pile of sticks. Her and her husband started carrying them by hand. I asked if they had a tarp, and came up with the idea to load the tarp and carry the tarp together. She literally thought I was a genius, but I brushed it off as no big deal. Later when I was looking through one of her gardening books, there was a large illustration showing how to use a tarp to carry large loads. People can just as easily not recognize an obvious solution, as they can think it's obvious in hindsight.

Very interesting treatment of the subject. I think that to add a layer of illustrative comprehension you could ask yourself like "why don't I use a wheelbarrow to go grocery shopping ?"

Wheelbarrows require a lot of effort to move them over rough, uneven ground. Their utility is overestimated.

This also excellently illustrates that there might not be easy answers to some questions. Everyone seems to want a clear and simple answer nowadays, but with cultural stuff, politics, etc. there usually isn't a straightforward solution to something.

Someone who can make me watch a video about wheelbarrows is really a special man. You sir are a wonderful person, quietly addressing the prejudice in the world and helping us all to see that there is a lot more connecting us than dividing. Fantastic video as always. Greetings from Croatia

One thing I never realized about history until fairly recently is that there are so many ifs in it and there are so few ways to get facts and sometimes facts come from the strangest things. Like when people figured out weaving, wheel barrows, ox-carts, bowls, furniture, etc, tell us a lot about what's going on in a certain place at a certain time. It's all a really complex and frustrating puzzle. So friggen cool.

I really like this one. It's going to have me thinking and daydreaming while washing dishes or driving for the next few weeks, about how you said for most generations they may not have seen a single technology introduced during their lifetime.

Apparently, tons of people have never used a wheelbarrow. A wheelbarrow is really good for some specific tasks, such as moving loose fill from one place to another. Think sand, compost, or dirt. You load once, the dump it at the location you want. There are not many good ways to carry dirt from one place to another, but a wheelbarrow is good at this. Sometimes, bricks or other things can be used, but frankly, even there it is more difficult than you might think. If the wheelbarrow is not really well weight balanced, it becomes very hard to keep stable. Plus, remember, the wheelbarrow has weight. It makes little sense to carry a light weight in a wheelbarrow.

Teaching absolute facts and teaching how to think and speak critically. Gotta love it!

I live in a big European city. Like all Europeans we do get around a lot on foot (shopping, errands, even walking the dog) and wheelbarrows are a huge thing here. Basically everyone has one, but you can also download the app and get a Rent-A-Barrow at every corner. There are so many wheelbarrows around that sometimes the side walks get kind of congested and navigating your barrow can get difficult. In some areas in the inner city there are even designated _wheelbarrows only_ lanes right on the street. One of the main coming-of-age rituals is getting your first own proper wheelbarrow for pushing your stuff to school - I still remember mine: it was bright red with shining white handles and a shining white tire! What a proud day that was when I put all my school stuff and my lunch into my very own wheelbarrow and went off to my first day in school. Because of our predilection for wheelbarrows it's really easy to recognize tourists here in town, and though it's not very polite a lot of locals scoff at foreigners walking around with those old fashioned backpacks - 5500 years after the invention of the wheel 🤦🏻

I love this guy’s videos. His hair is also distractingly spherical.

It's nice when a video's ultimate point is just "I don't know"

Legs can go where wheels cannot.

Regarding the context of a wheelbarrow, I wonder how much has to do with the lack of wheel-navigable footpaths. Modern wheelbarrows are pretty forgiving, but even I have gotten mine stuck in a few ruts in my yard when trying to move heavy objects. If you want to use a wheelbarrow somewhere, generally you are going to be using it in an area that has been leveled and graded. Any sort of steep slope or rocky terrain can greatly hinder a wheeled object, when someone head-carrying can simply walk on through. Could be a chicken and egg situation, not to the same extent as cars and paved roads, but in a similar vein: nobody used wheelbarrows because there were'nt paths navigable by wheels, and because the paths werent navigable by wheels, no one had or thought to acquire a wheelbarrow. Once someone has a wheelbarrow, you now subscribe yourself to additional work of maintaining and leveling paths so that you can traverse them with a wheelbarrow; at a time when most people are just trying to raise their family and farm, the additional work required for this would be friction preventing the adoption of it.

I was in really rural Yunnan once hiking and there were a lot of women carrying items on their heads. At the same time I saw A LOT of little truck/motorbike things with beds that could easily carry the items. At one point, we asked them why they were walking down the road carrying their pack instead of loading it onto the trucks. They said gas was expensive, so they try to carry the easy things (they were harvesting tea) and left the heavy things to the trucks and plus then they could talk without the men being around! Edit: I just thought of another example in my own life. A couple of friends and I were out in the wilderness at a cabin with plenty of wood already cut. There were a couple of dead trees nearby. We had a chainsaw. And yet, the guys grabbed a couple axes and we went to cut down the trees. Had some beers, took turns chopping down a couple trees. We didn’t have to do it that way, and it wasn’t even us trying for some “macho” thing. We didn’t even discuss why we didn’t use the chainsaw. I think there’s sometimes a social element of these things, where efficiency is not necessarily the goal (and maybe that’s only a very modern Western way of thinking). When you have virtually unlimited time to accomplish a task, sometimes it’s just better to do it with others and enjoy that time together. It’s working together as social bonding, efficiency is only secondary

Only the central middle ages we had wheelbarrows? Wow man really puts manual labor in perspective.

There is a scene in "Breaking Bad" where Walt and Jesse are struggling to move a 55-gal barrel of methylamine that they stole from a warehouse. They drag it and shove it around and finally get it to the vehicle. ASAC Shrader is watching grainy security footage of this and laughs and exclaims, "guys, it's a barrel. roll it!" Now, Walt is a really bright guy. He made thermite to get into the facililty. He makes meth for a living. But rolling a barrel is beyond his comprehension?

As someone who does a lot of manual labor outdoors and owns a wheelbarrow I honestly think the answer might be just because we have a tool that doesn't mean we always use it. I move firewood between my house and the woodshed behind the house somewhat frequently. Sometimes I carry a few logs in my arms and just go back and forth multiple trips, and sometimes I load the logs into the wheel barrow and do it in just a few trips. Using the wheelbarrow doesn't make the job all that much faster or easier, but it doesn't make it slower or more difficult either, so in the end it honestly just depends on how I feel on any given day. Some days I'll use the wheelbarrow without giving it a second thought, and then other days I'll completely forget using the wheelbarrow was even an option. So, yeah, I think on a wider scale the answer is just that humans don't act in a uniform manner and if we just don't want to use a certain tool because it's not particularly helpful then we won't use it.

What is this great video really about? He adroitly corrects logical fallacies-errors in reasoning. Great stuff.

I'm from Portugal (born in 1995) and I remember as a child seeing women carrying baskets with fresh vegetables on their head. Every one of their husbands owned a wheelbarrow, but I think the basket causes way less fatigue during carriage over longer distances. Try holding a loaded wheelbarrow for 20 minutes and feel the burn on your arms and shoulders.

"No one was going to the DMV in the Middle Ages" We have to go back. (It's a joke people)

I've never seen anyone go so deep into not just what we know but how we think about what we know. You are a master of revealing hidden assumptions!

God damn I love this channel so much. It is so clear that you have not only an incredible knowledge but the limited editing shows so clearly that you have a deep interest in these topics; seeing certain thoughts catch your attention and subsequently listening to you go off on tangents is so refreshing and human. Excited for the next video and thanks again

I love wheelbarrows. People on job sites scratch their heads at my choice of plastic wheelbarrows. The best modern evolution in the wheelbarrow is the plastic 2 wheeler. This thing allows me to do as much as 10 tons in a day with the wheelbarrow, because it is so much lighter than other wheelbarrows and I can save energy on the return trips to the stockpile.

My grandfather farmed in Iowa from the 1920s to the 1960s. I remember he had a wheel barrow but used an aluminum bushel basket to feed his hogs. He was always interested in technologies but I think it was quicker to carry the bushel basket than load and inlaid his wheel barrow when feeding the hogs. He did use the wheel barrow for other chores.

In my experience wheelbarrows typically work better on roads or over short distances, such as at a construction site or in a garden, but you probably don't want to be bent over a wheelbarrow if you have to fetch water from a well 25 kilometers away, in that case carrying it on your head will be so much better for your back. You probably also don't want to be dragging around a wheelbarrow in rough terrain that might require stepping over fallen logs, holes in the ground, or rocks, especially if the wheelbarrow is an old fashioned one made of wood and iron (and is thus much heavier and doesn't do as well on rough terrain as a modern aluminium wheelbarrow with a rubber tire). Context is everything. And if you notice in most of the pictures, you can see that the women have a small hat or a ring of cloth on their heads under the basket, it is actually a quite comfortable and practical way of carrying pretty heavy stuff. Those who condemn it just for being old fashioned should first try it themselves.

"No one was going to the DMV in the Middle Ages." Truly a more enlightened era.

Food for thought: Why are we still using very old technologies for manual tasks if modern solutions exist? For example the ratchet: We have electrical ratchets, electrical drills, impact wrenches and so forth but the manual/mechanical ratchet is still an essential tool for every mechanic, even though the electrical replacements are just as good. In my opinion, at least a partial answer is that, the mechanical ratchet does the job well enough and the more modern technology is often just not needed for the job at hand. This can be applied to many other technologies that are currently available and affordable and probably is a factor in the case of the wheelbarrows as well. Carrying stuff on your head or with your arms was good enough, I mean it still is to this day. I don't get out the wheelbarrow every time I need to move some stuff in the garden, I just pick it up and carry it. Not on my head admittedly but that's more because I don't have the practice for it. If you're already really good at carrying stuff with your head and that works just fine for the job at hand, why invent or even use a wheelbarrow?

Nobody thought of putting wheels on a suitcase or a garbage can for a long time. In the 80s we just carried them.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do more videos on history in this format of time travel guides! I don't know why but I feel like I understand and learn wayyy more in this way than just normal history lectures! This is soooo good! Plus theres other time travel history guides out there but you've done it the best and your videos are my favorite!

Haha. Premodernist right on point, per usual. I’m currently working on a back deck for a neighbor on his land. A couple days ago, wheelbarrow in-tow, I pondered the significance historically of the WHEELBARROW. Cheers my friend, another timely video!

Up until the 19th Century, most people in Europe walked barefoot; lived in small homes in the countryside with thatched roofs, mud walls, and dirt floors; slept on cloth sacs stuffed with hay and woven rush mats laid on the floor; cooked by an open fire; got their water from a well or a stream; only had a few clothes which they would recycle; slept with their animals for warmth; walked to get from one place to another; had windows with no glass; used flat loafs of bread as plates; ate with their hands; shared the same roof with extended family; and bathed in streams and lakes. Most people didn't have a toilet back then, so they used a chamber pot at home or went behind a bush outside. Life was very primitive back then. You only see things change in towns and among the rich, but most folk lived in villages in the countryside

I imagine pack animals were preferred over wheelbarrows anyway. My assumption would be that if you really needed to carry something heavy, or even a lot of smaller things over a moderate to long distance/during manual labor, you would use a pack animal like a camel, ox, mule, horse, alpaca etc. A wheelbarrow would be incredibly specific, and would probably not be much better than having a pack animal follow you around with everything you'd need to get a job done. So I'd imagine that if people had access to a pack animal, possibly with a carriage, they would prefer those over a small cart that they would have to lug around anyway. I assume that the wheelbarrow was a result of a weird circumstance where people completely lacked access to pack animals, either in some isolated valley or new laws or something, idk. Fun to think about though!

“Technologies are only obvious in hindsight,” is such a simple but eye opening statement!

I always look forward to your vlogs, you have a great voice and way of making things, which in some cases would be boring, very interesting and relatable to us. Regarding head carrying, head loads are in line with the spine and the loads are distributed across the whole frame in a vertical position which allowed people, generally women, to handle much heavier and bulkier items than arm carrying or back carrying. Your pictures illustrate this extremely well. One thing I thought about was the terrain where building took place, it was often irregular and unpaved and a barrow carried by two people was less awkward and more efficient on these surfaces than a wheel barrow. Thank you, it's really a pleasure when you post. Cheers, Rik Spector

I love this dudes Chanel. The most random historical information. Loved the time travel episode and q&a

Love these videos. Nuanced and insightful answers to questions like these are sadly hard to find on youtube

Great opening to get a smile. The topic is unusually a rich one. My grandfather's hand made wheelbarrow was fought over by his sons. After many years the wheelbarrow wound up in dry Tucson where the aged wood eventually disintegrated. At the Berlin Checkpoint Charlie an elderly East German wheeled a handmade wheelbarrow with loaded goods past the East German guards who were informed that the old man was snuggling something. Nothing eas ever discovered. After the fall of East Germany and Checkpoint Charlie is now a tourist novelty. One of the former East German guards encountered the now elderly wheelbarrow fellow and asked him what he was smuggling those many years ago. The very elderly man smiled and replied, "wheelbarrows." Actual incident.

Ever since I found your channel a while ago I love it. I love learning about the more 'mundane' stuff of history like your time-traveler video, and I appreciate how this gives us a really tangible idea of what life of the times was.

“in his new book Pax: War and Peace in Rome’s Golden Age, the British historian Tom Holland (not to be confused with the actor of the same name, best known for portraying Spider-Man!), discusses an account by the ancient historian Suetonius of an event during the reign of Vespasian who was Roman emperor from 79 A.D. to 89 A.D. (p. 201): “An engineer, so it was claimed, had invented a device that would enable columns to be transported to the summit of the [Roman] Capitol at minimal cost; but Vespasian, although intrigued by the invention, refused to employ it. His explanation was a telling one. ‘I have a duty to keep the masses fed.’” Vespasian had fallen prey to the lump-of-labor fallacy by assuming that eliminating some of the jobs hauling construction materials would reduce the total number of jobs available in Rome. As a result, it would be harder for Roman workers to earn the income required to feed themselves.”

I was using a wheelbarrow during yardwork today, and this is the video that I listened to while working!

I liked the way that you acknowledged both the genuinely curious commenters and the bigots, then proceeded to calmly teach everyone history without any hostility towards the people who belittled you. “Don’t get mad guys, here’s what we know about wheelbarrows.”

I distinctly remember the video you reference at the beginning and it struck a chord with me! Thanks for an excellent follow-up video

Sir, I f***ing love your videos. You remind me of the best teachers I ever had and the most respectful people I've known. Plus you've nailed the youtube title & thumbnail game, so hopefully the algorithm catches on soon.

He makes an excellent point about how hard it is to pinpoint the invention of new technologies. Even in the modern era you can find out who filed the first successful patent for something, but that doesn't necessarily tell you about when or how it was invented. Alexander Graham Bell filed the first patent for the telephone in 1876. The story of how the telephone came to be is a little more complicated than that.

I always enjoy the thoughtful approach taken by these videos.

I've seen older women carrying things on their heads around me, and I am in Corfu, Greece, in 2024. It's rare for sure but yeah. Sometimes it's just more practical. Wheelbarrows cost in materials and maintenance, they are not exactly cheap to have around and certainly not ideal for every terrain, wheels can get stuck in the mud, they can have trouble traversing rocky, uneven ground... Lots of factors. I am adding to the stuff said in the video, there are no simple answers and wheelbarrows are not the holy grail of technology. They have their use, but there is a time and place for everything, you know.

I love your videos both the topics and your way of explaining. I also feel my vocabulary and speech patterns improve by listening to you.

So excellent you posted! I’ve been waiting! Thank you!!

Very interesting. I had never considered the history of the usage of the wheelbarrow. This video helped put your previous one in context.

I love your videos. Not much content on RU-vid can discuss a topic in such depth

One reason not to use a wheelbarrow and carry stuff on head is the roads/paths might not permit it. If there was no concrete, there was mud. And if carts had been pulled through the mud, they would have left big furrows. That would have made it difficult for little wheelbarrows to get through.

Postancient premodernist out with another banger

Your ideas and simple monologues make up some of the internet's most chill videos.

I hope you understand how much we like your videos dude!!!

My favorite youtuber by far, greetings from Nicaragua

IIRC the Chinese developed several varieties for different conditions. The wheel was usually placed in the center and the load balanced around it. Sometimes there are handles in front so that two people could power it. Even donkeys could be hitched to the front. Along narrow paths in farmland and rough terrain they could be useful and may have been invented to help supply armies in the mountains.

Great video, love that the focus of this video is on technology and how obvious things can look in hindsight.

Awesome video. I remember seeing the video in my feed awhile back and I wanted to give my full attention while watching your video and it wasn't a disappointment. Thank you for making videos like this. Keep up the great work! 😁😁

you spoke about wheelbarrows for 20min and i was spellbound youre amazing at what you do

I really loved the video about wheels in Africa, and it shifted my perspectives/ways of thinking about a lot of things, so I’m very glad that we got a sequel of sorts here, which is equally as excellent and thought provoking!!!

Please make more videos your way of explaining history is EXTREMELY valuable

My new favorite channel. Great history lessons.

Great video and like you say a great entry point in to thinking about how our ancestors thought about technology. Like you say I imagine there are an absolute multitude of reasons for why wheelbarrows weren't universally adopted and why certain people weren't using them even hundreds or over a thousand years since they were invented. Some points I was thinking about were for one, the weight of the wheelbarrow, that image you show of some very old wooden wheelbarrow in a museum looks like it would probably weigh a substantial amount more than what you would be carrying with it most of the time so I imagine sharing the weight with a handbarrow was probably more desirable a lot of the time. There's also the issue of the wheel itself, a stiff wooden wheel is not going to be the most manoeuvrable of things, I can imagine it got stuck quite a lot and using it on a non-flat surface would be horrific. Plus I imagine they would fall apart and break pretty easily, especially if you overloaded it. Also with the ladies not using them, there's always the question of ingrained sexism, every picture we saw of a wheelbarrow was a man using it on a building site, may have just been seen as a "men only" tool.

I've recently come across your channel and it amazes me how you explain the intricacies of world history. One thing that stood out to me was that we live today in a society of technological advancement where as in 1200 technology was the same from when you were born to when you died. I can't even imagine not fantasizing about what technology the future might hold. I wonder how the anticipation of advances technology will affect us later down the line and if it changes our outlook on the world.

Interesting that the algo suggested this video. I am reminded of when I was studying for a degree in history of technology (it wasn't called that, but it was basically the same) 32 years ago. Now, regarding wheelbarrows: They are greatly useful for specific tasks. If you look at the areas where we now employ them, you will see dense/heavy loads, and most of these are granular: sand, cement, earth, etc. It is not just that the wheelbarrow makes the transportation of the cargo easier, but also the unloading. The other advantage of the wheelbarrow over a multi-wheeled cart is the ease of steering and manoeuvrability. But as some of you may know, the ease of manoeuvring a wheelbarrow comes with the risk of tipping it at losing the cargo - therefore, not suitable to very valuable and delicate cargoes. The same can be said for head-portage. So the first thing to ask is, in areas that had the wheel, why would a hand-barrow be used, and why would a cart be used, and why would a wheelbarrow be used. Wheeled portage is not good when one has to climb stairs or irregular ground, for instance. But after this, there is the fundamental economics of the task. It may have been cheaper to use more primitive but unskilled human labor than to hire a cartwright to create carts and wheelbarrows, and this economics can vary quickly in time and location. For instance, I don't currently own a wheelbarrow, because other than occasional lawn clippings, I don't have any suitable task, therefore I haven't bought one. I was still living in the city when my parents sold our ancestral home and moved into a retirement community, so most gardening tools were sold because there simply wasn't the need or even space for a wheelbarrow and many other tools. Lastly, there is the evidence of the past being preserved to this day. It may be possible that some sub-saharans had the wheelbarrow at some point, but it was lost to society and we have found no relics because of the lack of books or pictures, and the tendency of wood to rot. In this way, much of what may have existed 8,000 years ago in the British Isles has rotted away, save the occasional bog find. Snapping back to the present day and my current situation, I may be doing some masonry of a sort around my property this summer, and will have a reason to purchase a wheelbarrow, and while using it I am sure this video and my response will re-enter my mind.

Great analysis, great methodology questions. Thanks for diving in and not taking easy ways. I learn a lot through your videos, please continue!😊

this video gave me a lot to think about. great work as always!

Another great video, and you got me really engaged in the topic. Thank you for your work and posting. Easily one of my favorite channels I've found recently.

I bought a wheelbarrow to use in my backyard garden, I found that I don’t use it nearly as much as I thought I would. Basically just to move large amounts of compost or loose soil short distances. Even when I use it to carry bags of soil, sand or concrete, i can’t wheel it directly to where I need it. Either the ground is too soft or the wheelbarrow cant make the turn around the raised beds. It does make some tasks easier but I could easily do without it. It’s a pain in the winter with limited storage space.

Your videos remind me about my time in the uni. It's a pleasure to have this kind of lecture really and although it was not an everyday thing in the uni, I really miss having a dialogue with peers and teachers alike that par the quality of this video. Thank you so much. Your videos have made me want to go back to school. I wish I could afford to continue.

Thank you so much for uploading ❤

this is a phenomenal channel

i have been waiting for an upload YAY

My wife is from Portugal and is in her late 60’s and when she was a kid they lived on a farm and they would carry heavy items on top of their heads. She actually still has an injury from that time from when she stumbled while carrying and the heavy weight hammered on top of her head and caused her collar bone to break and protrude from her chest, and it never healed because they never went to the doctor. I asked her why they didn’t use a wheelbarrow and it was because they had one, but it was being used and when you have a large amount of land to traverse, and the wheelbarrow is a half mile away, it’s just easier to transport the load manually if it’s something that could be lifted rather then spending a half hour going back and forth to fetch the wheelbarrow.

omg i was just re watching your time travel video so happy to see the new post 🎉😄

Wonderful video! Really loved the discussion of this topic. One thing I'd add is that we should note that common people in pre-industrial societies were often loathe to adopt new technology. During the agricultural revolution in the 19th century in England, writers and agricultural scientists bemoaned that farmers were very slow and hesitant to adopt new farming practices or technologies that could benefit them. As far as the average farmer was concerned, they had methods that were proven to work (albeit imperfectly) and they'd have to ask if it was worth investing in new approaches when they might be a waste of money and effort or worse, prove to be counterproductive. There's often a conservative cultural inertia that any new technology must overcome and it didn't always happen as quickly as it does in the modern age.

Thought-provoking as always

I suspect most comments were by people who's hands never operated a wheelbarrow...

I've seen a paper that claimed the introduction of wheelbarrow in China happened due to labour shortage caused by the Three Kingdoms wars. It is believable, given that innovations appear when hiring a second person becomes more expensive than giving the first one a new fancy tool

No one wants to say it, but so many of those wheelbarrow commenters were being straight up racist. Thank you for responding the them and using your platform for good.

Thai is exactly like listening a professor in class. I love it. Love this channel

I audibly gasp with joy every time there's a new premodernist upload

Nothing goes everywhere as good as legs and feet. Wheels need an appropriate surface to roll on. Example: chariots were in use and helped a lot until a general set the battle on terrain that was unsuitable for wheels. Sand, rocks, marsh, uneven ground needs feet. That general was an unexpected victory. Chariots were not used as much after that. Also factors pointed out here: you need the technology and knowledge of how to use it to have the idea to understand its use.

Social pressures are bizarrely powerful. I keep thinking on this recently. Related to this context, I've used head portage a fair bit on my homestead, but I would be less likely to do so where someone could see me because I'm a white man and that would be a strange sight for many to behold me carrying things on my head. I've also been keen to wear suspenders as they work so much better than a belt, but the societal pressure to not wear such a thing means that I didn't even truly consider it for years and just recently when I couldn't take it anymore, I researched and found out there is such a thing as suspenders that you wear under your shirt so that you can have the utility of easily holding your pants up without others seeing that you are wearing suspenders. This all from the social pressure that only old men or perhaps little boys ought to wear suspenders. I have no idea if it's relevant to the use or lack therof of the wheelbarrow in Africa, but it always strikes me how extremely important society and fashion are in so many facets of our lives.

I have moved timber wood by wheelbarrow for my fire for 23 years uphill and I can ABSOLUTELY tell you that, that same load of wood on my head would really, really hurt