Wheat can only be harvested during a limited period. Wait too long, & it is useless.
Even with all the help he can find, & working 18 or 24 hour days, a farmer using hand tools can only plant & harvest enough wheat to feed 2.5 families, besides his own.
The speed of McCormick’s Harvester means that a farmer could plant & harvest enough wheat to feed 10 families.
This horse-drawn harvester gave Man the leisure to seek other things besides subsistence agriculture.
Um…are you really asking? It just inhibits heat transfer. Either the warmth of the room into your cold beverage, or the heat of your coffee into the cooler room air. Heat flows “downhill” (from areas of greater concentration to lesser) unless prevented by an insulating material.
A big reason for Beer getting all the votes - it played a big part in the transition from hunter/gatherer to farming. “Hey, Ugg, this stuff’s tasty! Oh, I see, if I start planting crops, I can have my own beer? I am SO there!”
Two quick notes:
-The Aztec empire, if I understand correctly, was built without the use of wheels. Children’s toys had wheels, but no practical tools did. Sure, they were no Los Angeles, but they were a relatively complex civilization for their time.
-Family rumor has it that my great-uncle invented an automatic bread slicer, but that the patent was stolen from him by his boss. My brush with fame…
While not on the same level as the wheel, the alphabet, or beer (how come beer isn’t a tech advance in CivIII?), the internal combustion engine, the airplane, and the assembly line are pretty nontrivial.
