and outdoor tracks, as well as on naturally occurring bodies of frozen water such as lakes and rivers. History A study by Federico Formenti of the University of Oxford suggests that the earliest ice skating happened in Southern Finland about 4000 years ago. Originally, skates were merely sharpened, flattened bone strapped to the bottom of the foot. Skaters didn't actually skate on the ice, but rather glided on top of it. True skating emerged when a steel blade with sharpened edges was used. Sk… (More on Ice-skating)