Carrying Logs for the Sake of Science

New Mexico's Chaco Canyon holds the ruins of many pueblos and great houses built by Chacoans more than a thousand years ago. These houses had up to 700 rooms, and were built with stone and timbers that were brought in from up to 70 miles away. How did they transport those logs without draft animals or even wheels? Rodger Kram and James Wilson theorized that they might have used tumplines that enabled humans to carry larger loads for further distances than we would normally consider possible.
To test the theory, the two scientists "put their money where their mouth is," or rather, put their time and effort where their scientific theory is. They spent the summer of 2020 getting into shape and then carrying logs over miles of landscape using tumplines. First, they trained for 45 days, then they went for distance. Kram and Wilson managed to walk in sync with each other up to 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) in a day carrying a 60-kilogram (132 pound) log together. Their conclusions, reported in the Journal of Archaeological Science, state that this method was entirely feasible for a sizable community to build these huge constructions. Read about their ordeal in testing that feasibility at Ars Technica. It includes a video so we can see how they did it.