The oldest artifacts from the ice sport of curling are stones which prehistoric people slid toward a target along frozen rivers or lakes. These people may also have used primitive brooms to clear snow from the path of their sliding stones.
In 1565, Holland’s Peter Breugel painted "Hunters in the Snow" and another work depicting scenes resembling modern curling. Breugel’s paintings support the premise held by some that curling originated in continental Europe. The Scots, however, are the undisputed developers and formalizers of the modern game. By 1638 curling was considered, with golf and archery (in M. H. Adamson’s poem The Muses Threnodie), to be a usual recreational pastime. After a huge growth spurt in the 19th century, curling was played by thousands in nearly every Scottish parish.
Between the 16th and 20th centuries, Scotland’s climate warmed, and today the lochs rarely freeze. The climate change hindered curlers, who played outdoors on natural ice until the 20th century. Nonetheless the Scots had, by the mid-1800s, formalized curling’s rules of play and equipment and had established the "mother club" of curlers worldwide, the Royal Caledonian Curling Club. The RCCC is today the national governing body of curling in Scotland, with 20,000 active members now playing indoors on refrigerated ice.
The game of curling spread throughout the world through the efforts of thousands of Scottish soldiers and émigrés. In North America, curling’s origins
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