Rope Equals Fire as Humanity’s Most Important Invention: It Allowed Hunting Mammoths and Building Pyramids

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“‘Rope!’ muttered Sam[wise Gamgee]. ‘I knew I’d want it, if I hadn’t got it!’” Sam knew in the Lord of the Rings that the quest would fail without rope, but he was inadvertently commenting on how civilization owes its existence to this three-strand tool. Humans first made rope 50,000 years ago and one of its earliest contributions to the rise of civilization was as a tool for domesticating animals for milk, meat, and work. ncient Egyptians were experts at making strong, three-strand rope from the halfa grass along the banks of the Nile. Rope allowed them to haul two-and-a-half ton limestone blocks to build the pyramids. They also used rope to tie together the planks of their graceful vessels that sailed without the need of a single nail. The Austronesian peoples spread across the islands of the Pacific in the most impressive and daring series of oceanic voyages in human history. And they did it using fast catamaran and outrigger boats held together with coconut fiber rope.

Today’s guest is Tim Queeny, author of Rope: How a Bundle of Twisted Fibers Became the Backbone of Civilization. We look at the past, present, and future of this critical piece of technology.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Scott here with another episode of the History Unplug podcast.
0:07.7	The top three most important inventions for the creation of human civilization and perhaps even humanity itself is, I would argue, fire at number one, gave humans access to animal protein as a nutrition source, stonework, making the first primitive tools,
0:21.6	and number three is rope. Why not the wheel? Why not literacy? Well, rope was necessary for making
0:27.1	any sort of structure before nails existed. It allowed you to create boats, ladders,
0:31.8	really any kind of primitive structure that required wood. It made the lashing of stone spear
0:35.9	points to spears possible, so a Paleolithic man could
0:39.2	take down megafauna and woolly mammoths.
0:41.5	Animals couldn't be domesticated without rope because it kept them in range.
0:45.1	Rope is what allowed the settlers at Gobeckley-Tepa to make megalithic structures 10,000 years ago
0:50.1	or the Egyptians to create the pyramids by hauling two and a half ton limestone blocks.
0:54.6	Polynesian sailors could settle the vast Pacific by using coconut fiber rope along with
0:59.2	outrigger boats with catamaranths.
1:01.5	Rope is massively overlooked, and it's one of the most important pieces of technology
1:05.3	since it was first made about 50,000 years ago.
1:08.2	Today's episode, speaking to Tim Queenie, author of Rope,
1:11.1	while bundled twisted fibers became the backbone of civilization. We look at all the
1:14.8	aforementioned uses along with other ones and religious settings, in calculations
1:19.1	before we had calculators in Abakai, and the future of Rope, how we can expand on the structure,
1:24.5	use nanomaterials, and possibly create space elevators.
1:28.9	Hope you enjoyed this discussion.
1:36.0	And one more thing before we get started with this episode, a quick break for a word from our sponsors.
1:46.1	Everyone probably has some level of personal history with knots. When I was in Boy Scouts,
	...

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