The article defines the role of the system of transport routes for the civilizational development of society. The versions of modern scientists regarding the place and time of the invention of the wheel, the oldest mechanical device, were studied. The grounds for considering the area of Tryplian culture as the territory of its invention are considered. Probable directions of distribution of this most important mechanical invention are indicated. The role and importance of creating a network of primitive trade routes is clarified. The importance of the Carpathian region in the system of the trans-European route system of the Bronze Age (III-II millennia BC) is revealed. The processes of origin and development of primitive types of transportation on the territory of modern Ukraine and the judgments of ancient scientists regarding the directions of the main European roads at the beginning of the 1st millennium BC have been studied. The German scientist's opinion about the European ways of the Middle Ages is revealed. The natural-historical entry of the roads of Ukrainian lands into the European transport system of different historical periods is substantiated. The reasons for the emergence and sustainable development of overland freight transport on the territory of Ukraine have been determined. The origins, reasons for long-term immutability and significance of plague in the territory of Ukraine are analyzed. The influence of the introduction of the stagecoach for postal needs in the British Isles in the middle of the 16th century on the arrangement of the postal (coachman) service in the Russian Empire, including in the Ukrainian territories, is clarified. Based on information from the chronicles of the Ukrainian lands of the 18th century, a system of postal routes of that time was outlined. Processes of transformation of horse-drawn carts, transformational factors of types and means of transportation processes in different historical times, and the determining importance of transport routes for economic development are considered.

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