# Did sub-Saharan Africa really not have wheels or written languages before Europeans? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 18, 2017, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sub-saharan-africa-really-not-have-wheels-or-written-languages-before-europeans/794007 "2017-08-18T21:29:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sub-saharan-africa-really-not-have-wheels-or-written-languages-before-europeans/794007/41 "2017-08-22T16:50:09Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > A wheelbarrow is terribly useful on very flat, open ground. Of which there is a great deal of in Africa. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sub-saharan-africa-really-not-have-wheels-or-written-languages-before-europeans/794007/42 "2017-08-22T17:17:23Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Of which there is a great deal of in Africa. Your experience with African terrain would be … ? ---
**Author:** ![WilyQuixote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f9ae1b/32.png) [@WilyQuixote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WilyQuixote)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sub-saharan-africa-really-not-have-wheels-or-written-languages-before-europeans/794007/43 "2017-08-22T17:31:17Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Your experience with African terrain would be … ? The entirety of subsaharan Africa looks like the Serengeti. How could you not know this??? /s ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sub-saharan-africa-really-not-have-wheels-or-written-languages-before-europeans/794007/44 "2017-08-22T17:57:23Z")
Whatever the relative virtues of the wheel as a mode of transport, the potter’s wheel would be useful everywhere that people made pottery. > **[Potter's wheel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potter%27s_wheel)** > > In pottery, a potter's wheel is a machine used in the shaping (known as throwing) of clay into round ceramic ware. The wheel may also be used during the process of trimming excess clay from leather-hard dried ware that is stiff but malleable, and for applying incised decoration or rings of colour. Use of the potter's wheel became widespread throughout the Old World but was unknown in the Pre-Columbian New World, where pottery was handmade by methods that included coiling and beating. > A potter'... The potter’s wheel was known in ancient Egypt: [http://orca.cf.ac.uk/45612/](http://orca.cf.ac.uk/45612/) Allegedly, it’s use in sub-Saharan Africa was “rare” as hand-building was preferred, but I’ve found no source that dates its introduction there. Allegedly, the Maya did not use potter’s wheels: > **[Ancient Maya Painted Ceramics | Essay | The Metropolitan Museum of Art |...](https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/mayac/hd_mayac.htm)** > > Ceramic vessels nourished in both life and death: they held food and drink for daily life, but also offerings in dedicatory caches and burials, which range from the simplest graves to the richest royal tombs. But they did use a k’abal: “While it is certainly true that the Maya did not possess the potter’s wheel, they did make use of a device called the k’abal. This was a wooden disk that rested on a smooth board between the potter’s feet. Spun by feet, the k’abal was not unlike the potter’s wheel that had been in use in the Old World for over five thousand years.” > **[Real smart folks, but no wheel? - Pre-Columbian Americas](https://www.zoesaadia.com/real-smart-folks-but-no-wheel/)** > > I’m honored to present a guest post from Andres Michel Amezcua (Quezaltcoalt), Bilingual Interpreter at American Translators Association, an expert on Mesoamerica and its various indigenous nations and cultures. Why didn’t the peoples of ancient... Possible conclusion: despite the argument in the above article, it wasn’t the difficult terrain or lack of animals that prevented the use of the wheel (as neither would impact the use of the potter’s wheel). Rather, it was the difficulty inherent in making the thing in the first place - mainly, in making an axle that worked. This is the conclusion in Scientific American as to why inventing the wheel took so long: > **[Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-it-took-so-long-to-inv/)** > > The tricky thing about the wheel is not conceiving of a cylinder rolling on its edge. It's figuring out how to connect a stable, stationary platform to that cylinder The k’abal is, basically, a potter’s wheel without an axle. It stands to reason that the axle would be the “hard part” to get right. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2017, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sub-saharan-africa-really-not-have-wheels-or-written-languages-before-europeans/794007/45 "2017-08-22T18:16:14Z")
One thing to keep in mind is that the wheel is not only useful for transportation, but it is hugely helpful in moving water around and powering machines. The water wheel and the windmill would probably not exist without “the wheel (with an axle)” having been invented first. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sub-saharan-africa-really-not-have-wheels-or-written-languages-before-europeans/794007/46 "2017-08-23T04:36:02Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Of which there is a great deal of in Africa. But in areas where there is nothing much to carry in a wheelbarrow.😉 ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sub-saharan-africa-really-not-have-wheels-or-written-languages-before-europeans/794007/47 "2017-08-23T05:09:29Z")
> [@Hector\_St\_Clare](#): > > Precolonial Africa had horses, but my understanding is they were luxury items reserved for military use and as prestige items (same as in India, unlike in Europe) rather than as agricultural labour or standard means of transport (Africa and India used oxen in place of horses). I’m not sure if that’s because of tropical disease pressure or because of the lack of the kind of feed that horses need, but it seems as though they were more difficult to raise in tropical environments than they were in Europe. For India, thats true in the South and the East, but not so much in the North. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sub-saharan-africa-really-not-have-wheels-or-written-languages-before-europeans/794007/48 "2017-08-23T05:44:17Z")
Africa had lots of [horses](https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0b/46/e2/3a/serengeti.jpg)… ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sub-saharan-africa-really-not-have-wheels-or-written-languages-before-europeans/794007/49 "2017-08-23T07:54:52Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Africa had lots of [horses](https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0b/46/e2/3a/serengeti.jpg)… You get the saddle, I’ll hold your beer for you, far, far away from it. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sub-saharan-africa-really-not-have-wheels-or-written-languages-before-europeans/794007/50 "2017-08-23T08:08:14Z")
> [@thelurkinghorror](#): > > You get the saddle, I’ll hold your beer for you, far, far away from it. Naah, not a saddle. I’m a gentlebeing.[I use a four-in-hand carriage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Rothschild,_2nd_Baron_Rothschild#/media/File:WalterRothschildWithZebras.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2017, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sub-saharan-africa-really-not-have-wheels-or-written-languages-before-europeans/794007/51 "2017-08-23T16:58:12Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Africa had lots of [horses](https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0b/46/e2/3a/serengeti.jpg)… Rothschild notwithstanding, Jared Diamond mentions that the reason Zebras were never domesticated was that they had a bad habit of biting, really badly. He said there were ore Africans with zebra wounds than lion wounds. (Presumably, in a lion encounter the result is less likely to be a wound you talk about later…) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-sub-saharan-africa-really-not-have-wheels-or-written-languages-before-europeans/794007.md?page=2)