Energy · c. 4,000 BCE

Draft animal power

Oxen pulling plows add several times a human's muscle power to farm work.

Cattle harnessed to ards and sledges appear in Mesopotamia and Europe by the 4th millennium BCE. An ox delivers roughly 400 to 500 watts sustained against about 75 W for a laboring human. Animal muscle was the largest non-human power source on Earth until the 19th century.

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What it built on 1

Livestock domestication 8500 BCE

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Energy sources in England & Wales since 1800 Latest: 99.9 % of primary energy (2008) Source: Our World in Data

World population over a million years Latest: 6.27k million people (2000) Source: DeLong 1998, table 'Total World Population' (Kremer series); Kremer 1993, Population Growth and Technological Change: One Million B.C. to 1990, QJE 108(3)

Cereal yields in England/UK since 1275 Latest: Wheat: 7.28 t/ha (2024) Source: Our World in Data