Skiing has a history that dates back at least 8,000 years, with the earliest skis found in Russia around 6000 BCE. Initially used for transportation and hunting, skiing evolved into a popular recreational sport in the mid-1800s, particularly in Scandinavia, and has since spread worldwide. In fact, the word ski comes from the Old Norse word skíð which means "cleft wood", "stick of wood" or "ski."

The earliest Scandinavian examples of skiing date to 3000 or 4000 BCE with primitive carvings. An image of a skier holding a single pole or an ax with both hands, was found in Norway. The Rødøy carving shows skis of equal length. A rock carving at Norway, from about 1000 or 500 BCE depicts a skier seemingly about to shoot with bow and arrow, with skis positioned in an angle (rather than parallel) to offer good support.

Archaeologists discovered the first primitive Scandinavian ski, dating back to 4500 or 2500 BCE, in a peat bog in Hoting in Jämtland County in Sweden.

Over 20 findings of ancient well-preserved skis have been found in drained bogs in Norway, indicating that skis have been widely used in Norway, particularly Northern Norway, since prehistoric times. Skis have also been uncovered in ancient graves. In 2014, a ski complete with leather bindings emerged from a glacier in the Reinheimen mountains, Norway. The binding was at a small elevated area in the middle of the ski.

Based on findings in the Nordic countries and elsewhere, researchers have identified at least three main types of ski: arctic, southern and central Nordic. The arctic type was short and covered with fur, and used from northern Japan in the east to the Ob River in the west. The Sami people probably brought this type to the Nordic region. The southern type, used in forest areas of Southern Scandinavia and the Baltic countries had one short and one long ski. The central Nordic type also had one short ski with fur (the andor) and one long, used in large parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland.

Norse mythology describes the god Ullr and the goddess Skaði hunting on skis. Later, historians regarded Ullr and Skaði as the god and goddess of skiing and hunting. Early historical evidence includes Procopius' (around CE 550) description of Sami people as skrithiphinoi (or skridfinns) translated as "ski running samis" (Sami people were commonly referred to as Finn).

Norwegian immigrants used skis, which they referred to as "Norwegian snowshoes," in the midwestern United States from around 1836. Norwegian immigrant "Snowshoe Thompson" transported mail by skiing across the Sierra Nevada between California and Nevada from 1856. In 1888, Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen and his team crossed the Greenland icecap on skis. Norwegian workers on the Buenos Aires - Valparaiso Railway line introduced skiing in South America around 1890. In 1910, Roald Amundsen used skis on his South Pole Expedition. In 1902, the Norwegian consul in Kobe imported ski equipment and introduced skiing to the Japanese, motivated by the death of Japanese soldiers during snowstorms.

In 1843, Tromsø, Norway held its first public skiing competition or betting race on March 19, 1843. It became the first skiing competition reported in a newspaper.

Skis weren’t always of equal length. The Swedes and Finns in the northern regions of their countries used asymmetrical skis until the 1930s. On one leg, the skier wore a long straight non-arching ski for sliding, and on the other a shorter ski for kicking. The bottom of the short ski was either plain or covered with animal skin to aid this use, while the long ski supporting the weight of the skier was treated with animal fat in a similar manner to modern ski waxing.

Around 1850, artisans in Telemark, Norway, invented the cambered ski. This ski arched up in the middle, under the binding, which distributes the skier's weight more evenly across the length of the ski. Earlier plank-style skis had to be thick enough not to bow downward and sink in the snow under the skier's weight. Norheim's ski was also the first with a sidecut that narrowed the ski underfoot while the tip and tail remained wider. This enabled the ski to flex and turn more easily.

In 1950, Howard Head introduced the Head Standard, constructed by sandwiching aluminum alloy around a plywood core. The design included steel edges which had been invented in 1928 in Austria. The exterior surfaces were made of phenol formaldehyde resin which could hold wax. This hugely successful ski, designed for recreational use rather then for racing, was unique at the time. In 1962, Karl Schranz used a fibreglass ski, Kneissl's White Star, to win two gold medals at the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships. By the late 1960s, fibreglass had mostly replaced aluminum in the manufacture of skiis.

In the early days of skiing the binding was similar to those of a snowshoe at the time and generally consisted of a leather strap fastened over the toe of the boot. In the 19th century, skiing evolved into a sport and ski makers replaced the toe strap with a metal clip under the toe. This provided a much greater grip on the boot, allowing the skier to pushed the ski sideways. The heel strap also evolved over time to allow a greater range of motion. Manufacturers added a spring to allow the strap to lengthen when the skier lifted the boot up off the ski.

Later, they replaced this buckled strap with a metal cable. The cable binding remained in use, and even increased in popularity, throughout this period as cross-country skiing developed into a major sport of its own. Change eventually came through the evolution of the Rottefella binding, first introduced in 1927. The original Rottefella eliminated the heel strap, which held the boot forward in the binding, by drilling small holes in the sole of the boot which fit into pins in the toe piece.

The introduction of ski lifts in 1908 led to the evolution of alpine skiing as a sport. In the past, skiers had to ski or walk up the hills they intended to ski down. With the lift, the skiers could leave their skis on and would be skiing downhill in a shorter time. As lifts became more common, especially with the introduction of the chairlift in 1936, the ski world split into cross-country and downhill, a split that remains to this day.

Originally, ski boots were leather winter boots, held on to the ski with leather straps. As skiing became more specialized, so too did ski boots, leading to the splitting of designs between those for alpine skiing and cross-country skiing.

Johannes Scheffer supposed gave the first sets of instructions for ski wax application in 1673 using pine tar pitch and rosin.

Early skiers used one long pole or spear. The first depiction of a skier with two ski poles dates to 1741. In 1959 Ed Scott introduced the large-diameter, tapered shaft, lightweight aluminum ski pole.

Early adaptations of the ski pole featured wood or metal baskets at the bottom of the pole. Skiers found these designs too heavy, and following the conclusion of World War II, it became much more common to make the baskets at the top of the poles out of plastic, a practice which has continued until today.