When was the wheel invented? The wheel was invented in roughly 4200 BC, over 6,700 years ago. I have toyed with whether “invented” might be the wrong word to use here. “Discovered” might be better because there are many round things that naturally exist in the world. However, I think we can safely go with “invented”. The properties of round things were discovered when someone saw a naturally round thing rolling, but the uses for that round thing had to be invented. There are round things that roll in nature, but there are no wheels with axles in nature.
The wheel that was invented 4700 BC was not actually a wheel for moving a vehicle or a heavy load, but a pottery wheel. The oldest pottery wheel found was made in about 4700 BC where Western Ukraine is today. It was made by the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture, and had existed for about 800 years by this point, so it is probable that the earliest potter’s wheel is even older than this. There would need to be several trial versions before the working model that was found could be possible. This is the oldest wheel found, but there is no way of knowing where or how old the wheel is because no culture had a system of writing or recording information until at least 3500 BC. There could have been older wheels that just haven’t been found and there is no written or physical evidence of them.
The jump from a potter’s wheel to wheels on a cart took a very long time. Looking from our perspective, the wheel seems like an incredibly simple solution to a problem and it doesn’t seem that complicated to make. However, like anything, you don’t know how necessary it is until you have it. For example, the can opener was only invented almost one hundred years after canning had been invented.
Before the wheel was invented, goods were transported by animal, either carried or on a sled. There are many images of sleds being pulled by animals. This works, so long as the ground is smooth, but it is pretty hard for an animal to pull a sled because there is no assistance from a sled. If you have tried to push a car, you know that the hardest part is getting it started. Once it is rolling, it is fairly easy to keep it rolling. If you have pulled a heavy sled on the flat, you know that it is not the same as a wheel because every time you stop pulling, the sled stops, and it takes far more effort.
People may have used logs to roll large pieces of stone for monuments, but it is another jump from rolling a log to making a wheel. The first wheels were said to have appeared in Mesopotamia in about 3300 BC, but recent archaeological founds have shown that the first wheels were actually invented near to the place where the first potter’s wheel was invented. The oldest known wheel and axel combination was found in a marsh in what is now Slovenia. They have been dated to about 3500 BC. Close by, in what is now Germany, archaeologists found parallel, wavy ruts under a tomb from 3700 BC, which must have been made by a wheeled cart. Where Ukraine is now, complete carts have been found in graves dating from about 3300 BC. The wheels must have been invented a long time before the first one that was found because it is a fully functioning wheel and axel system. It would have taken possibly several hundred years to get to that point. So, the wheel could have been invented close to 4000 BC in Europe.
Wherever the wheel was invented, its impact changed society forever. Transport became easier. People could travel much further and they could carry heavier goods. It also brought improvements in warfare as well, not that that is necessarily a good thing. It encouraged migration and vast groups of people started to move around the world. Being able to carry larger loads increased trade as well. It also played a huge part in agriculture as well. Many other changes were secondary to the invention of the wheel. It made windmills and watermills possible. It was one of those inventions that caused a ripple of other inventions and changes that came after it. And that is what I learned today.
Sources
https://www.interstem.us/events/the-invention-that-changed-the-world-the-wheel.html
https://www.bricsys.com/blog/who-invented-the-wheel-a-brief-history
https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-7565,00.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel
https://www.newscientist.com/definition/the-wheel
https://www.citeco.fr/10000-years-history-economics/the-origins/invention-of-the-wheel