Why Didn't American Civilizations Develop the Wheel?

Factual Questions
41

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
I remember seeing that the ancient inhabitants of the American South West had roads;these were discovered quite recently. What they were used for is a mystery.
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Doesn’t need to be any great mystery. If the Wheel didn’t hit Britain until circa 500 BC, what was the road near Stonehenge used for?

Roads don’t just make walking easier and more clear, but greatly assist Group and Ceremonial Travel. Ever walked through a shopping mall? Ever been frustrated by that group of six people all walking side by side really slowly, blocking up the place for everyone else?

Ever tried to move a 50 ton stone down a trail?

42

[QUOTE=Polycarp]
Bison – ever try tgo convince a bison to do something it doesn’t want to? Not domesticable.
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I’ve never bought that argument. Domestication can be a complex process, not necessarily driven by humans. We don’t know how difficult it would be to deliberately domesticate an auroch, which was the wild ancestor of today’s cattle.

43

In ‘Guns Germs and Steel’, Jared Diamond asserts (and I’m summaring from memory):

The Eurasian landmass had much greater east-west expanse at roughly the same latitude, resulting in greater diversity of plants and animal life. Which led to better food supplies, which led to faster population growth. Larger populations and food stockpiles allowed Eurasian civilizations to develop specialists – people who could tinker with stuff instead of spending all day hunting/gathering or tending crops. An additional factor was, as already mentioned, the lack in the west of domesticated mammals bigger than llamas. This made wheels less valuable for transportation over rough surfaces.

Diamond asserts further that these advantages rooted in geography are major reasons that Eurasian civilizations developed the technology with which they were able to conquer African, Native American and other civilizations, instead of the other way around.

44

[QUOTE=F. U. Shakespeare]
In ‘Guns Germs and Steel’, Jared Diamond asserts (and I’m summaring from memory):

The Eurasian landmass had much greater east-west expanse at roughly the same latitude, resulting in greater diversity of plants and animal life.
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I think his argument was almost the opposite of that. The greater east-west expanse allowed people to utilize the same crops and animals across a much larger area.

45

I think it’s very likely that the wheel was invented in the Americas, but it didn’t necessarily proliferate across every culture on the two continents. The wheel spread throughout Europe and Asia because it was useful, both in construction and as a weapon of war. Societies confronted with this new technology called the “chariot” either adapted or were swarmed under. That could explain its relatively rapid dissemination across such a large area.

Without draft animals, the wheel has more limited use as a weapon of war — particularly as an animal-drawn chariot. (A chariot drawn by humans wouldn’t be especially fast or effective.) That would limit the wheel’s uses to human-powered construction, especially large-scale civic constructions; wooden rollers would still need roads, and — especially in jungles and forests where the Mayas and the Incas and the Aztecs hung out a lot — roads are constructed by teams of laborers not individuals.

So I figure they did use primitive wheels. They just didn’t build 'em out of stone, and they used them for very specific, limited, large-scale jobs.

46

One other thought: Do we know that the wheel was invented or first used to hitch a wagon to a draft animal? The wheel is a very useful tool even if you’re just using human power to move things around locally.

47

[QUOTE=John Mace]
I think his argument was almost the opposite of that. The greater east-west expanse allowed people to utilize the same crops and animals across a much larger area.
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I thought (and again, this is from memory) that while Eurasia’s east-west arrangement did allow distribution of plants and animals all over Eurasia, it also allowed a larger, more diverse set of them to evolve initially: I remember a comparison he did of grasses in Eurasia versus the Americas: there were more of them in Eurasia, and their seed sizes were bigger. This supposedly resulted in better-quality grains than in the Americas.

The north-south arrangement of the Americas did make it harder for plants and animals to migrate than in Eurasia, and this was exacerbated by the narrowing of the landmass in Central America.

Again this is IIRC - it’s been a while since I read it.

Bottom line: he blames geographic differences for technological differences, to include the wheel.

48

Jared Diamond has popularized a lot of hypothesis, but I don’t know how seriously he’s taken by archeologists, anthropologists, and other scientists who actually study this stuff. He has some ardent critics. I’m a bit skeptical, myself, and these hypotheses are difficult, if not impossible, to prove.

49

[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
I strongly suspect (as I usually do) that it was independently invented in more than one place. But, despite all the ceramic work in the Americas, no one came up with it there. Why not?
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Aside from a desire to have a mystery to contemplate, what evidence (or suggestive inferences) do you have that wheels were invented independently in multiple locations?

Can you name any society that acquuired the wheel that was not joined via trade routes to other societies that already had the wheel?

The wheel’s first appearance in the Americas popstdated the arrival of Europeans.
The wheel’s first appearance in southern portia of Africa with the arrival of Europeans.
The wheel’s first appearance in Polyneisa and Micronesia postdated the arrival of Europeans.
The wheel’s first appearance in New Zealand and Australia postdated the arrival of Europeans.
The wheel’s first appearance in Europe postdated its invention in the Middle East.
The wheel’s first appearance in China postdated its invention in the Middle East.
The wheel’s first appearance in India postdated its invention in the Middle East.

50

[QUOTE=ralph124c]
No American pottery (pre-Columbian) was wheel-turned; it was made by building up from a rope-like roll of clay, which was later smoothed. I would guess that the wheel did not evolve because of no large draft animals being available. Do modern Bolivian Indians hitch llamas to wheeled carts?
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OMG, did you post this just to play mind games with the OP? :smack:

51

My query about the independent invention of the wheel is not due to my desire to have a mysrery to contemplate. It stems from my belief that no one place or time is priviledged in invention, and that certain items do indeed appear to have arisen independently in more than one place at more than one time. See my cites on the wheelbarrow above. Or see my book on the gorgon, in which I note that the gorgoneion appears to have been independently created in several places – it defies attempts to derive a creative center from which it naturally flowed elsewhere by cultural diffusion.

If i had evidence for indepent creation of the wheel, it’s make this easier. I don’t, but that hasn’t stopped people from suggesting independent inventions of the wheel. See Wikipedia on the Wheel:

52

In the 18th and early 19th century, dragging/sliding barrows were very common, even when wheel barrows were a known technology. I suspect this had to do with the cost of decent metal wheels/axles, particularly ones with low friction. (Iron and steel was not cheap before the middle of the 19th century).

Can anyone give an example of another significant use of wheels that didn’t involve draft animals?

My recollection is that for physical/skeletal reasons llamas, like camels, are unsuited for pulling (though they are fine for carrying).

53

Besides the Potter’s Wheel from the OP?
Wheels can be used to make moving any sort of heavy object easy. The roofs they placed over the salt evaporation beds on Cape Cod until Thoraeu’s time were on wheels that enabled a single person to cover or uncover them.

Handcarts enable a single person to move heabvy loads over suirfaces, even surfaces that are uneven. I’ve mentioned the Utah handcarts. I’ll also memntioo n knifesharpeners of the 19th century, moving their shapemning stones, and similar tradesmen. Heck, the sales kiosks in many malls today are the same technology.
And, of course, there’s the wheelbarrow. Despite what you say, wheelsbarrows didn’t need metal axles. The wheelbarrow reproductions at the Saugus ironworks (used to haul around iron ore, charcoal, and gabbro/flux) had wooden axles and wooden wheels. So do the reproduction wheelbarrows in the links I give above, and I suspect that the Chinese and Greek barrows referred to in them were all wooden as well.
Spinning wheels are generally wooden, with wooden axles. The antique one in our house certainly is.

As long as we’re bringing up such things, I have to note that drop spindles (which, I think, someone mentioned above) and various whorls and weights were round, as well. They have to be, in order to spin evenly. These are downright ancient, and give another example of rotating round objects that would certainly give the idea of wheels. Tops are also ancient, as is the yo-yo, which existed in ancient Greece (albeit under a different name).

54

My book of mormon states 9very plainly) that the Jaredites used wheeled chariots-so there!

55

[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
Besides the Potter’s Wheel from the OP?

Wheels can be used to make moving any sort of heavy object easy. The roofs they placed over the salt evaporation beds on Cape Cod until Thoraeu’s time were on wheels that enabled a single person to cover or uncover them.

Handcarts enable a single person to move heabvy loads over suirfaces, even surfaces that are uneven. I’ve mentioned the Utah handcarts. I’ll also memntioo n knifesharpeners of the 19th century, moving their shapemning stones, and similar tradesmen. Heck, the sales kiosks in many malls today are the same technology.

And, of course, there’s the wheelbarrow. Despite what you say, wheelsbarrows didn’t need metal axles. The wheelbarrow reproductions at the Saugus ironworks (used to haul around iron ore, charcoal, and gabbro/flux) had wooden axles and wooden wheels. So do the reproduction wheelbarrows in the links I give above, and I suspect that the Chinese and Greek barrows referred to in them were all wooden as well.

Spinning wheels are generally wooden, with wooden axles. The antique one in our house certainly is.

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My point was, leaving aside various rotating non-transportation things like potter’s wheels and spinning wheels, all the human-powered wheeled transport that I know of, (such as bicycles, baby carriages, and knife-grinder carts) only became widely used (or used at all) after both cheap iron and precision manufacturing became available around the the mid-19th century.

The one exception that I can think of is wheelbarrows, but as I said, dragging/sliding barrows were also used extensively, leading me to conclude that for this application and with 18th century technology, wheels really weren’t vastly and overwhelmingly superior.

From this, it seems that wheels without draft animals and pre-19th century technology aren’t that useful for transport. Since the New World didn’t have draft animals, it appears there might be a good reason for not widely using the wheel for transport.
As an alternative theory, I’d posit that even wooden wheels require moderately sophisticated technology: I suspect making a usable wooden wheel requires more than stone tools, and perhaps even copper and bronze aren’t good enough. Any pre-iron woodworking experts out there?
And finally I don’t really think there’s a big connection between a society’s use of wheeled transport and the use of rotating devices like a potters wheel. I mean, what does knowing how to build a potters wheel do to help you build an oxcart? The only thing they have in common is an axle, but the two different axles don’t even bear weight in the same direction, so they’d want completely different kinds of bearings.

56

[QUOTE=Quercus]
The only thing they have in common is an axle, but the two different axles don’t even bear weight in the same direction, so they’d want completely different kinds of bearings.
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When your bearing consists of a wooden cup supporting a wooden shaft, there’s not a lot of difference. And note that only the lower bearing of a potter’s wheel supports axial thrust - so the upper one is really rather similar to the bearing that might be used in a wheelbarrow.

57

A number of suggestions, if I may. Building a wheeled device takes considerable effort. In order to be worthwhile, the result has to take advantage of economies of scale, but as is obvious, real world mechanical objects can’t just be scaled up from pottery toys and still work.

The obvious first attempt will involve solid wooden wheels, which are likely to be relatively heavy, meaning that the vehicle needs to be large enough to make the energy cost of merely shifting the wheels worthwhile. This factor reinforces the idea of the scale of investment involved. Lighter spoked wheels ameliorate this factor, at the expense of a huge increase in the effort necessary to make the wheel.

And the result must be reliable. It is worse than useless to create a vehicle that keeps on needing so much maintenance that it is effectively more trouble than it is worth. This is particularly so if there is a ready supply of labour available to compete with the prototype vehicle.

On the issue of reliability, I suspect the hardest task is attending to the surfaces where axle meets inner circumference of wheel. Beyond the level of trivial vehicles, this load bearing point requires some reasonably sophisticated, non-obvious technology - the bearing. An axle will of necessity have axially-oriented wood grain, so that the rotational forces it is exposed to will tend to apply shear forces across the grain. Not all wood tolerates this well. Leather bearings will need constant attention and replacement.

And there has to be the capacity to fix the wheel to the axle in such a fashion that it does not wobble (causing a waste of energy, and steering and control problems) and yet can be readily removed and replaced as needed.

Scaling up to 4 wheels creates a further layer of problems - steering becomes necessary, or else the vehicle is forced to travel in a straight line.

I suspect that the invention of the wheel is not as simple a matter as we of later eras who take it for granted would assume. I can’t help but feel that much depends on the point at which the cost benefit analysis ceases to make the effort in R and D worthwhile.

58

[QUOTE=Noel Prosequi]
The obvious first attempt will involve solid wooden wheels…
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Almost certainly a single wheel, for a wheelbarrow-type device.

Why “scale of investment”? An early wheel would have been the product of a single person.

And they would not have been developed until long after the first wheels were in use and proving their worth.

I’d argue that a simple bearing is rather obvious: a wooden cup that holds a wooden axle, lubricated with animal fat.

There’s plenty of evidence that primitive people were quite sophisticated about wood and its selection for various purposes: bows, arrows, boats, fire-drills. (And note that the latter involves a type of bearing.)

You may be contemplating a fixed axle that passes through a hole in the wheel. It’s probably simpler to start with an axle that’s fixed to and rotates with the wheel, supported in bearings that are part of the wheelbarrow.

Two wheels would have worked well for hundreds (thousands?) of years, giving time to develop more advanced applications.

I doubt there was much in the way of cost-benefit analysis or market research done before the R&D department (one guy familiar with wood who had some time on his hands) started to experiment.

59

Why can’t it be that wheels simply weren’t needed? I mean, things like “it would have made life so much easier” betrays a mindset that might not grasp the gist of everyday life in pre-European America. It may seem to us that efficiency and ease are of paramount importance, but for people who have all they need — not so much. Why hurry, when you have oodles of time? Why be lazy, when you have plenty of fit people who enjoy their work? Why make a potter’s wheel, when the way you’re doing it works just fine?

60

[QUOTE=Liberal]
Why can’t it be that wheels simply weren’t needed? I mean, things like “it would have made life so much easier” betrays a mindset that might not grasp the gist of everyday life in pre-European America. It may seem to us that efficiency and ease are of paramount importance, but for people who have all they need — not so much. Why hurry, when you have oodles of time? Why be lazy, when you have plenty of fit people who enjoy their work? Why make a potter’s wheel, when the way you’re doing it works just fine?
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That is an interesting idea but famine and war were not unknown. The large Central and South American kingdoms could have made good use of the wheel.

To support cities, labor saving devices make a big difference. Wheels help ease the burden of transporting goods and foods the towns and cities. If they had developed the wheel into a tool, they might have also got water wheels going which would have helped with some of the irrigation projects they had up and running.

I think you point is a good one for the tribes that remained migratory and effectively hunter/gatherers, but many of the people of pre-European America could have made much use out of wheel tech.

Jim