Who invented wheeled vehicles

In Switzerland and southwestern Germany, the earliest wheels were fixed to a rotating axle through a square mortise, so that the wheels turned together with the axle. Elsewhere in Europe and the Near East, the axle was fixed and straight, and the wheels turned independently. When wheels turn freely from the axle, a drayman can turn the cart without having to drag the outside wheel. A series of parallel cart tracks was identified beneath the northwestern half of the long barrow at Flintbek, measuring just over 65 ft 20 m long and consisting of two parallel sets of wheel ruts, up to two ft 60 cm wide.

Each single wheel rut was 2—2. On the islands of Malta and Gozo, a number of cart ruts have been found which may or may not be associated with the construction of the Neolithic temples there. The beaker is associated with cattle bone dated to — cal BCE. Reliable dates indicate that two- and four-wheeled vehicles were known from the mid-fourth millennium BCE throughout most of Europe.

Single wheels made of wood have been identified from Denmark and Slovenia. While miniature models of wagons are useful to the archaeologist, because they are explicit, information-bearing artifacts, they must also have had some specific meaning and significance in the various regions where they were used. Complete life-sized vehicles are also known from Holland, Germany, and Switzerland, occasionally used as funeral objects. A wheel model carved out of chalk was recovered from the late Uruk site of Jebel Aruda in Syria.

This asymmetrical disk measures 3 in 8 cm in diameter and 1 in 3 cm thick, and wheel as hubs on both sides. A second wheel model was discovered at the Arslantepe site in Turkey. This disc made of clay measured 3 in 7. This site also includes local wheel-thrown imitations of the simplified form of late Uruk pottery. The model was discovered along with various pottery fragments and animal bones in a part of the settlement dated to the early Bronze Age.

The model is Wheels and axles for the model were not recovered, but the round feet were perforated as if they had existed at one time. The model is made out of clay tempered with crushed ceramics and fired to brownish gray color. The bed of the wagon is rectangular, with straight-sided short ends, and curved edges on the long side. The feet are cylindrical; the entire piece is decorated in zoned, parallel chevrons and oblique lines.

The idea for the pitchfork and table fork came from forked sticks; the airplane from gliding birds. But the wheel is one hundred percent homo sapien innovation.

As Michael LaBarbera—a professor of biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago—wrote in a issue of The American Naturalist , only bacterial flagella, dung beetles and tumbleweeds come close. We tend to think that inventing the wheel was item number two on our to-do list after learning to walk upright. But several significant inventions predated the wheel by thousands of years: sewing needles, woven cloth, rope, basket weaving, boats and even the flute.

Researchers believe that the wheelbarrow first appeared in classical Greece, sometime between the sixth and fourth centuries B. Although wheelbarrows were expensive to purchase, they could pay for themselves in just 3 or 4 days in terms of labor savings.

In fact, the wheel, which the goddess Fortuna spins to determine the fate of those she looks upon, is an ancient concept of either Greek or Roman origin, depending on which academic you talk to. And William Shakespeare alludes to it in a few of his plays. Camels supplanted the wheel as the standard mode of transportation in the Middle East and northern Africa between the second and the sixth centuries A.

Richard Bulliet cites several possible reasons in his book, The Camel and the Wheel , including the decline of roads after the fall of the Roman Empire and the invention of the camel saddle between and B. Despite abandoning the wheel for hauling purposes, Middle Eastern societies continued to use wheels for tasks such as irrigation, milling and pottery. Kay was a farmer and a herder. He had dogs, horses, and sheep, and perhaps wore some of the earliest wool clothing.

He enjoyed mead, an alcoholic honey drink, and he raised cattle and drank their milk. He lived in a long house in a small farming community likely clustered near rivers. Linguistic evidence suggests Kay worshipped a male sky god, sacrificed cows and horses in his honor, and lived in a village with respected chiefs and warriors. The average height for Yamnayan men was approximately 5-foot-9, and he likely had a heavily muscled frame from years spent toiling in his field.

There is no other explanation. They believe the precise craftsmanship needed to construct a functional wheel and axle may have been impossible with stone tools. The first and most critical component of the wheel, writes Steven Vogel, author of Why the Wheel Is Round , is the fit with the axle. Too tight and the wagon is hopelessly inefficient, too loose and the wheel wobbles and breaks apart. Too thick and the axle creates too much friction; too thin and it breaks under strain of the load.

Then there would have been the matter of the wheel itself, which is a deceivingly complex device. Under strain, it would quickly deform.

Kay would have had to carefully dowel these cuts together, and then shape them into a perfectly round wheel. Too small and the wagon cannot surmount any potholes, too large and the already heavy vehicle becomes immobile. The wagon, as Anthony notes, could not have been put together in stages.

The evidence suggests that small wagons or carts, likely drawn by cattle, were in use in Central Europe by this time in human history. The first carts featured wheels and axles that turned together. Wooden pegs were used to fix the sledge so that when it rested on the rollers it did not move.

The axle turned in between the pegs, allowing the axle and wheels to create all the movement. Later, the pegs were replaced with holes carved into the cart frame, and the axle was placed through the holes. This made it necessary for the larger wheels and thinner axle to be separate pieces. The wheels were attached to both sides of the axle.

Finally, the fixed axle was invented, wherein the axle did not turn but was solidly connected to the cart frame. The wheels were fitted onto the axle in a way that allowed them to freely rotate.

Fixed axles made for stable carts that could turn corners better. By this time the wheel can be considered a complete invention. Following the invention of the wheel, the Sumerians invented the sledge, a device consisting of a flat base mounted on a pair of runners with curved ends.

The sledge was useful for transporting cargo over smooth terrain; however, the Sumerians quickly realized that the device would be more efficient once it was mounted on rollers. While the basic function of the wheel is unchanged, modern wheels are much different from the simple wooden wheels of the past. Innovations in materials science have made possible all kinds of tires for bicycles, cars, motorcycles, and trucks—including tires designed for rough terrain, ice, and snow.

While primarily used for transportation, the wheel also has other applications. Watermills, for example, use water wheels—large structures with a series of blades along the rim—to generate hydropower. In the past, watermills powered textile mills, sawmills, and gristmills.