Reinventing the Wheel

Catalog description

The wheel's origins remain a mystery. Did it evolve in the Mesopotamian city of Uruk, humanity's first urban society, around 3500-3375 BCE? Or did a Boleraz copper miner in the Carpathian Mountains, around 4000 BCE, invent a pair of wheels connected by an axle in order to move a heavy ore basket? Why, despite having the potter's wheel and trade with Mesopotamia, did the Nile valley not use wheels until the pharaohs adopted war chariots around 1600 BCE? Why did the wheel, which came into use in 3 BCE, disappear in the Middle East a few centuries later, even though the arid climate kept roads clean for most of the year? Why was wheeled transport absent in pre-Columbian America, considering that ancient Mexicans had invented wheeled toys on axles? Did the wheel spread across regions as an idea or a technology? What can its historical evolution teach us about innovation and durability, about why some technologies adapt and others fail or are lost? Students will tackle such questions as they explore how the wheel's applications were shaped by religion, war, social hierarchies, gender bias, economic efficiency, and the local terrain - all while developing projects of their own.