who invented ice skating

Ice skating was not invented by a single person but developed over thousands of years. The earliest ice skates, made from animal bones, date back about 4,000 to 5,000 years ago and were used in southern Finland and possibly other northern regions to help people move easily over frozen surfaces in winter. These primitive bone skates were strapped to shoes and used for travel and hunting. The blade skate as known today, with sharpened steel edges that cut into the ice, was revolutionized by the Dutch in the 13th or 14th century. They added metal edges to skates, significantly improving gliding and maneuverability. Later developments included the invention of steel blades in the 19th century by E.W. Bushnell in 1848, which further improved skating performance. In terms of figure skating as a sport, Robert Jones wrote one of the first accounts in 1772, but American Jackson Haines is credited with pioneering the more free and artistic style of figure skating in the mid-19th century. Thus, the invention of ice skating spans from ancient practical bone skates to Dutch steel-edged skates to modern figure skating styles developed in the 18th and 19th centuries.