It's fascinating to watch history unravel. Sometimes it's predictable sometimes it's fresh with weirdness. And if you really can twist your head around to see way back down the "linear" path of history then forget trying to keep your hat on because the mind will instantly explode and with it your brain. And with that, your head. . . leaving you without a hat nor any continuing regard for those previously delicate concerns about the fashionability of a tall-hat or short-hat, or maybe one with a duck-bill; fuck it, just go for minimalist cool and rock the kippa (yamaka).
But keeping our hats on and heads clear, lets look at a familiar region of history, one I find to be incredibly entertaining: Chinese.
Fireworks, hemp paper, 4,000 year old bowl of millet noodles, the sundial, and the bristle toothbrush - these are the better known inventions. A highlight of their "inventiveness" is the classic foot game of SOCCER. Or the ancient Military training tool as China would have it.
RandomHistory.com shows how "The Munich Ethnological Museum exhibit in Germany includes a Chinese text from approximately 50 B.C. that describes physical education exercises called tsu chu, which consist of kicking a leather ball filled with feathers and hair into a small net—and, like in soccer today, the use of hands was prohibited". (Goldblatt 2008)
Other sources confirm that between that "cuju" (aka Kickball) was the begging of modern Futbol/Soccer starting between the 3rd-2nd centuries BC. The game is remarkable similar to today's game. Cuju had a no-hands rule and open nets where the ball would be kicked to score. Elsewhere on the globe the Aztec's played the Rubber-Ball court game in Mesoamerica but it's more like racquetball than soccer. The only comparable foot-ball game that shows up in history is from John Davis who explored Greenland and went ashore to join the Inuit for a game of soccer. The Aboriginals played to but nowhere was there much real documentation since Chinese cuju until the Medieval times of Europe. This game known as "mob football" is worth reading about for yourself. It had unlimited team members, punching and kicking almost anywhere was allowed, and the goals were not nets but town churches or other public places BETWEEN towns. So it was basically a Festive Christmas game for fun rivalries between townships back in the day of darkness.
Here is the pre-existing list of things China has the credit of inventing:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions
Keep it rolling,
G-Wiz
