Back to ancient history today, with part 2 about boats and shipping. Last time I talked about transport at sea; this time it’s the turn of rivers. I knew very little about this until recently, but in fact the widespread navigability of rivers across non-Mediterranean Europe was a crucial factor in driving the settlement patterns across Europe, from Brittany to the Urals.

The Mediterranean countries have no great network of rivers, so it was natural that communities and nations turned to the great inland sea for long distance transport of heavy goods. But north of the Alps the situation was entirely different. Going up one river as far as possible, then arranging for a short portage to the next river, traders could span great distances with comparative ease.

I had read before of the Viking overland routes down to the Black Sea and Byzantium, but this was only one example among many. There were corresponding journeys all through modern France, Germany, Poland and so on. When the Romans tried to defeat the Germanic tribes by crossing the Rhine into the Teutoberg Forest, they perceived it as a trackless and impenetrable maze. In contrast, the tribes living there saw the rivers as a network of easy transport and communication.

France was readily crossed from north to south as well, enabling the tin trade from the British Isles to flourish. According to a Greek writer, this journey took about 30 days for a group fully loaded with goods. This direct route to Marseilles was much more economical than the sea route around Spain – which is going to be a key plot theme in my next historical fiction book.

Rivers across northern and central Europe drove not only settlement patterns, but also boat technology. Specialised river vessels were developed, quite different in design to the ocean-going ones. They were usually between 10 and 15 metres long, had flat hulls with no keel, and were easily propelled by oar, pole, or dragging from a towpath. They could carry 25-30 people, or about 5 or 6 tons of freight or livestock with a small handling crew. Some might even be called the original ancestors of modern roll-on-roll-off ferries, since the bow section flattened out when beached, so that barrels could be easily shifted on board or off.

This river transport network survived in places up to the Middle Ages. By then, the increasing demand for energy in the form of water mills outstripped the need for navigation, and rivers were divided into sections so that easy transport was blocked. The brief ascendance of canals in the late 18th and 19th century might be seen as the last vestige of this ancient impulse to travel on inland water. But from the Middle Ages, roads, followed by railways, had essentially taken over the task of the rivers to move heavy freight.

Back around 1200BC however, the existence of these river boats was a key factor in human occupation and travel outside Mediterranean Europe, and will surface in some form in my next book…