The DIYer's Guide to Ladders

WHILE WE DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHEN HUMAN beings made a conscious effort to leave the ground, one possible clue about that timeline comes from cave paintings discovered in Spain in the 20th century.

- PAUL SMITH

The depictions, which can be traced back thousands of years, show people gathering honey from a lofty nest. Their means of ascent?

A ladder.

The long, squiggly lines that the humans cling to, one-handed, suggest a structure woven together of grass and vine, a far cry from the rigid, portable variety we've come to improve and rely on through the years. Ladders, in all their utilitarian ubiquity, have enabled us to do far more than just gather items from heights—they've taken us to the next level as a species. As we humans began gathering fruit on a large scale, we changed more than just our diet—we transformed how we organized our minds around problem solving. Like the couple gathering honey in those once-forgotten cave paintings, this would be impossible without the simple ladder, a tool as arguably important in our evolution as fire and the wheel.

The ladder has evolved over time for tasks both useful and nefarious. Early homes, churches, and public structures were all built using types of ladders and scaffolds to access higher floors and hold materials during construction. On the battlefield, wooden ladders were built—hopefully to the exact height of the castle ramparts—to storm and crest walls, an attack known as an escalade. Though the ladders were a formidable means of attack that could be deployed quickly, invaders had to set and climb them while defenders of the castle keep rained down rocks, arrows, boiling oil, and clumps of burning pitch from above. Hard pass on that assignment.

Whatever its purpose, the common ladder as we know it today is one of the most important pieces of equipment in any manner of life, taking on multiple forms to better facilitate convenience, portability, and, above all, safety. The final finished product is always something to behold. But it's the climb that makes it all happen. As an evolved species, we owe a great deal to the ladder in all of its forms.