Roads in the towns were straight and long, intersecting one another at right angles. Street paving has been found from the first human settlements around 4000 BC in cities of the Indus Valley civilization on the Indian subcontinent in modern-day Pakistan, such as Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. In central Germany, such ridgeways remained the predominant form of the long-distance road till the mid 18th century. As a result, by about 5000 BC roads, including the Ridgeway, developed along ridges in England to avoid crossing rivers and bogging. Pack animals, ridden horses, and bullocks dragging travois or sleds require wider paths and higher clearances than people on foot and improved tracks were required. In about 5000 BC, sleds developed, which are more difficult to build than travois, but are easier to propel over smooth surfaces. The first vehicle is believed to have been the travois, a frame used to drag loads, which probably developed in Eurasia after the first use of bullocks ( castrated cattle) for pulling plows. The first goods transport was on human backs and heads, but the use of pack animals, including donkeys and horses, developed during the Neolithic Age.

The Incan Empire in South America and the Iroquois Confederation in North America, neither of which had the wheel, are examples of effective use of such paths. Some of these dirt tracks were developed into fairly extensive networks, allowing communications, trade and governance over wide areas. As commerce increased, the tracks were often flattened or widened to accommodate human and animal traffic. The first improvements would have consisted largely of clearing trees and big stones from the path. The first improved trails would have been at fords, mountain passes and through swamps. In the Paleolithic Age, humans did not need constructed tracks in open country. The first forms of road transport were horses, oxen carrying goods over tracks that often followed game trails, such as the Natchez Trace. Further information: Packhorse bridge and Trail

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