Oldest ice skates?

The world's first skaters are likely to have taken to the ice about 4,000 years ago on the frozen lakes of Finland, according to a UK-based research team.

They seem to have used skates made out of horse bones, Dr Federico Formenti of Oxford University, co-author of a paper on the subject, told the BBC.

His team tested replicas of bone-skates from the British Museum over several years at an Alpine location.

He said the skates were fun to use and compared well with modern equivalents.

Posted by David on December 24, 2007 4:01 PM