[shakes head, then shakes hand]
Nice.
I forgot about them. You’re right, notched log ladders can be very useful. Even today. I’ve seen them at hiking camps.
https://goo.gl/images/eeynHK
They can even be used on outdoor slopes
https://goo.gl/images/wUHXBl
This is one inexpensive way to get people up a steep slope. 
just don’t look down. LOL
https://goo.gl/images/ZKjUUJ
However, there were elevators in the Colosseum. They were, of course, human powered, but they served similar purposes - to elevate and lower participants (including animals) to and from the main floor of the stadium from the floor(s) below. If I knew how to work this damned thing, I’d attach a link showing some nice shots of the reconstructed versions that are in place now. xo,
C.
They predate the Colosseum, too.
It’s not evidence, of course, but Pieter Brueghel’s painting of The Tower of Babel shows numerous man-powered “elevators” in place
It’s almost certain that these sorts of things were used in early construction.
Of course, ropes can break, and things can fall. People don’t know, or forget, that what Elisha Otis invented in 1852 was the safety elevator, a key element of which was a brake that stopped the car from falling if the cable broke. That’s why I put “elevator” in quotes. When I saw elevator, I mean one equipped with Otis-like brakes.
Also consider that Inca and Aztecs (and plenty of other North American societies) had stairs; I even see them in the photos of American Southwest cliff dwellings - and probably not something they brought over from Siberia fully developed, like boats or bows. So again, an elementary idea like stepping stones that was apparent to anyone. (The Romans had stepping stones in Pompeii to cross the street without stepping in the manure…)
They were a significant step in our development. When the first ones were actually built they attracted a lot of stares
In Barsoom (Edgar Rice Burroughs) they only had ramps. John Carter tried to introduce steps, but the Barsoomians didn’t understand/like them.
See, two of those, with halved logs nestled into the notches (flat side up) is a staircase - it almost invents itself.
The old Physics Building at the University of Utah had four floors, and no steps – it was all ramps. My office was on the top floor.
Thag Simmons?
In a Physics Building, I can only assume that ramps were frictionless.
Ah, the good old inclined plane.
Gardrilla Manceframe patented the staircase - cf. Fit the Seventh
Fortunately, no. That would’ve made life very interesting.
I assume frictionless ramps only work in a spherical building.
Don’t be ridiculous!
You want frictionless ramps shaped like cycloids. That way, no matter which floor you get onto it at, it takes you the same amount of time to get where you’re going. And it’s the shortest possible time.
Actually the ramps would be Mobius strips topographically, so you can always slide down to any level by getting onto any ramp.
In a recent National Geographic History issue about Native American history they had a pictorial of what a dwelling looked like for one tribe (Hopi? Anasazi?) There was an attic-like space for the bedroom headquarters, reached by a ladder.
And with escalators being a new invention, think I did see a Victorian age illustration of an exposition fair of folks riding an escalator upwards to a platform, and then at the top having to come down to the ground via, a staircase.
Actually, it was a genius inventor way ahead of his time…and his name has long since been lost to the ages. But as genius as he was lack of a reliable energy source thwarted him. So he said bump this crap and renamed his invention, the escalator, the staircase and called it a day.
Not really, except in the sense that building contractors sub out many jobs and this is a common one since it is a bit specialized and as has been pointed out, must be quite exact to be safe. Simple stairs are essentially a pair of heavy supports like 2x16s with triangular notches cut into them to accept a tread and riser, with one end on the lower floor and the other fastened to the next floor up, at an acceptable angle. When we built our house we cut the notches in the rough supports and erected them and then bought pre-made oak treads for them, since that is precision cabinetry work that we didn’t have the skill or machinery for.
The amusing thing is that most people who haven’t built houses don’t realize that a staircase is an entire two-story room inside your house. Amateurs who draw up their own house plans tend to not allow for this . . .
Living in a mountainous forest, I am familiar with cutting a set of steps up a very steep bank, usually this is just one foothold per step up. This is so intuitive that I can’t believe anyone with a modern human brain and something to dig with wouldn’t have hit on it pretty soon.
The Anasazi who only used ladders not stairs to get into their kivas I believe did this as protection from enemies, not because they didn’t know about stairs.