MessageToEagle.com – Archaeological evidence shows that ice skates were used about 5,000 years ago in Finland. Where skates were invented and why is still a matter of scientific debate. Some speculate ice skates were made for fun, but there are also those who suggest ice skates played an important part in the daily life of people who lived in cold countries.
The most ancient ice skates are found across a vast area of Europe (from Germany to North Scandinavia).
Credit: Federico Formenti
According to Federico Formenti from the Oxford University, ice skates were invented about 5,000 years ago in the South of Finland, where the number of lakes per square mile is the highest in the world. In this environment humans were forced to find a way to cross lakes, if they wanted to avoid having to walk around them.
The ancient Finnish ice skates were made of animal bones and were deliberately invented were in order to save the time and energy required for necessary journeys.
Bone skates did not have a blade so the movement pattern of ‘ice skating’ looked rather different from modern ice skating technique. Propulsion came from the upper limbs pushing a stick on the ice between the legs whereas the lower limbs, being kept almost straight, provided balance.
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The first wooden skates with a metal blade were made ‘only’ in the 13th century AD, when people skated using their lower limbs as a means of propulsion.
William Fitzstephen, a cleric and administrator wrote in the 12th century, described the use of bone skates in London:
“when the great fenne or moore (which watereth the walles of the citie on the North side) is frozen, many young men play upon the ice, some striding as wide as they may, doe slide swiftly… some tye bones to their feete, and under their heeles, and shoving themselves by a little picked staffe, doe slide as swiftly as birde flyeth in the aire, or an arrow out of a crossbow.”
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