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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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 ?"

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

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.

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

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 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 🤦🏻

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

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

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

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.

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

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!

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Postancient premodernist out with another banger

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

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

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?

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

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.

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

“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.”

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

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!

There is a modern day equivalent to this when it comes to let’s call it “the transportation of infants”. People will ask me why I carry my baby (and now my toddler) in a carrier on my chest when I could “simply” use a stroller 🇺🇸/pram 🇬🇧?! Which is basically a wheelbarrow for children. And the answer is that while it might be physically less exhausting to push something around than to carry the whole weight with your body, it’s also highly inconvenient in many cases. With a carrier, just as with head-portering, I have both hands free. I can walk stairs without any problem. Plus, in this particular example, the bonding that comes from close body contact with your child eclipses the inconvenience of carrying an extra 20 lbs around.

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.

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

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!

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!

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

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

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.”

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

I live alone, love to garden, and own a wheelbarrow, a 2-wheel garden cart, and a 4-wheel wagon. When I do move something with the wheelbarrow, I tend to pull it rather than push it. If people are working in groups, probably it's a lot quicker to have two or more people carry things, or perhaps form a "bucket brigade" to move things. Probably worn out wheelbarrows or carts got thrown on the fire as fuel. I often find the easiest way to move things is to put them on a tarp and pull them like a sled, because my lawn is not even enough to use the wheelbarrow easily, and it's sometimes muddy and the wheelbarrow makes ruts. I'd guess people used sleds a lot before they used wheeled tools.

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

New premodernist upload hooray!!!!

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!!!

Classic example of a question teaching us more about ourselves

My favorite youtuber by far, greetings from Nicaragua

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

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

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.

He’s back! He’s back! He’s back!❤

So glad I could take a break from filling out government forms to watch half this video. Now to fill out a form so I can take a break tomorrow to finish the other half!

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

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

this is a phenomenal channel

i have been waiting for an upload YAY

I really should time travel to three years from now so i have a slew of videos to binge because i finally caught up to all them

Thank you so much for uploading ❤

you are a great youtuber

"No one was going to the DMV in the middle ages" Truly a golden age of human society.

Thought-provoking as always

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

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.

I always enjoy the thoughtful approach taken by these videos.

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

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

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

I love the way you teach history. You teach it in a way where you can put yourself in that time period rather than reading about that time period. That’s a gift you have.

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 grew up in Chile and used to go grocery shopping with a shopping trolley all the time. Then I moved to the US and with the snow here (that is not being cleaned for pedestrians) the shopping trolley stopped being an option. I bought a 55L bag and I use that to the point that I'm so used to it that I don't use my trolley anymore, even when the weather is good. Yeah, technology has a context.

So glad you talked about women carrying basquets on their heads, here in Portugal if you watch old videos (1800s - early 1900s) it was so so so common, everywhere you went you would see this. My grandmother when I was young would take me to local markets and she would carry the groceries on her head as she did all her life till she got too old. Now its long gone and I haven't seen head basket carrying for decades (except maybe local gipsy communities a few times), but I'm glad I was able to see that part of history, at least a little bit.

You had me at "been thinking a lot about wheelbarrows."

Why the hell did this take an entire day to be in my feed?

I've used wheelbarrows & gotta wonder about all the people who think "easy peasy wheelbarrows are just so easy!". Like, have you guys used wheelbarrows? Yes they carry more than I can carry but it's incredibly laborious to use wheelbarrows & requires muscle power + stamina & relatively friendly terrain, & you have to get the feel for steering one & getting the load to its destination with our spilling. I swear some people would be mad at other cultures for not developing robots in pre-history.

The question can be flipped: many might be asking why anyone would use a wheelbarrow when you can simply carry things on one's head.

I was actually born in a wheelbarrow, no joke. My mother carried me to term by herself. Dad had carted himself off to god-knows-where. Ended up having to lift my family out of poverty with my own two hands. Got a good gig trucking some dirt around town; it was tough work, but someone had to wagon. Anyway, I won't wain about it anymore. Wheely, I won't.