Yesterday

The cave was warm and dry, but outside was different. The rain came down in gert big lumps and thunder echoed around the mountains. As the storm grew closer, lightning became more frequent and zagged to the earth, striking several trees on its way. Some of the trees succumbed to the onslaught and breathed their last as they crashed down onto the floor of the forest and lay there, gently barking. They wondered what they had done to deserve such destruction, not realising that causality was not an issue. The thunder faded as the storm moved away and night descended, dark and calm.

The morning dawned bright and freshly washed. A pale, liquid sun burnt off the mists generated from the saturated ground, now clinging to the trees spared by the storm that was a poorly-remembered nightmare.

Ugg stretched in the morning dampness to get the knots out of his ancient joints, he was seventeen, and looked over at his elder brother Ogg, who had not yet stirred. Ugg and Ogg were twins. This was an unusual event when most births resulted in a death before two years were over and twins were considered to be bad luck because there were usually two deaths close together. They had survived the births, a few minutes apart, the usual childhood diseases and accidents, grown up together and were now approaching old age. Their mother had died, reaching the old age of thirty two. Their father was thirty five and clearly had little more time left. He was the chief of the tribe so Ugg and Ogg had come to the high mountain to find slabs of rock that would be used to build his cist tomb where he would be buried with what the archaeologists far in the future would call grave goods - his favourite club, some food to sustain him in the afterlife and his collection of precious bowls.

Many trees had fallen into the combe that they had planned to use as an easy route back to the village so their choices were to heave the slabs over the tree trunks or move all  the trees. They decided to try to lift the first slab over a tree to see if it was possible. It was a struggle to get it up on the tree but then it stared to roll, taking the slab with it. When all the motion stopped they saw that the rock slab had moved twice as far as the tree – with little effort. They decide to try it again with the next tree. It worked again except that, this time it stopped because one of the tree branches stuck in the ground.

The two brothers looked at each other with a growing understanding. Without talking, they each started hacking the branches off the next tree down the combe with their flint axes They then pulled the slab onto it and rolled it down to the next tree. They repeated this until they got down to the grazing grassland near the village. They then got the idea of putting the tree trunk that they had left behind in front of the one they were using so that the slab just carried in rolling. They rushed into the village and grabbed a couple of young boys to help them. They soon had the five slabs for the cist down to the village from the mountain high above.

They explained all of this and how they had done it to the village elders who grumbled and said that no good would come of this new technology and, anyway, it would never catch on – they hadn’t thought of it. The young ones were enthusiastic, however, and insisted that Ugg and Ogg show them how it was done.

Mugg watched all this while he thought about the possibilities and how this technology could be developed.  Why did you need a complete tree trunk, he mused, why not cut the tree into a roller that was only as long as the slab was wide so it would be easier to navigate down the combe.

  Why not use several rollers to avoid having to keep stopping because you had run out of tree and why not… Mugg had just invented the first thought experiment.

The problem with this, of course, was that there was no way of steering and the rollers often jammed on small rocks in the way. They found that fat trees worked better than thin ones so they cut down the biggest tree near the village. They then cut discs from it which they fixed to each end of the roller. Mogg suggested that they cut holes in the discs and fitted them over the roller ends. This allowed them to fix the rollers lengthways. as an axle. They had built a cart!

The older generation watched, bemused. They kept a wary eye on the sky in case this wasn’t allowed and they would be smitten by the gods. No smiting happened but less people were needed to do more work so more crops were grown and the village flourished. Ugg and Ogg’s father lived to the magnificent age of thirty seven and was duly buried in the stone cist. His was the first funeral ceremony in the history of the Earth where the body was taken to the grave on a cart.

Mogg and Mugg now had some spare time so they concentrated on developing this new technology. They found that smearing pig fat around the centre of the discs reduced the wear on the rollers so both the discs and rollers lasted longer - and the cart was easier to pull They then tried tying a bullock to the front of the cart to pull it along. Mogg and Mugg were the first technicians and showed that greater productivity in the fields freed up others to become specialists and showed the way forward for the human race. It was a long time before they had the idea of allowing the front discs to go in different directions to the rear ones and so make a fully steerable cart.

The old ones, those over about twenty, couldn’t adapt to these new ideas so they carried on working in the old way. Their day passed and the new technology was developed through the generations at an increasing rate as the young ones accepted the new technology as normal and the older generations died. This rate eventually reached exponential. After this, there was no stopping the progress of the human race.

This is the way of the world as the moving finger of time moves on.