Unskilled workers - GIF

[mklotz]

This one reminds me of how Mesoamerican cultures lacked the wheel. Artifacts point to their use of wheels in childrens' toys, and as pottery wheels, but not for transport. One argument says that using wheels for transport also requires draft animals, which they lacked. They had independently developed written languages, and basic metalworking (gold and a little copper). But no wheelbarrows?

Wooden objects don't survive well in the moist climate of Central America. Egypt had a good climate for wood survival but utilitarian objects like tools are seldom found as grave goods. The Egyptians wrote and drew on almost every available vertical surface yet they seldom portrayed construction work; most of the graffiti is religious magic stuff. (You would think that a major construction project, like a pyramid, would merit a few pictures of how it was done but, so far, none have been found.) The Maya, Aztecs and Incans built on a scale comparable to the Egyptians yet their inscriptions also avoid how-to texts in favor of more religious malarkey.

[Actually, it's the axle, not the wheel that is the big invention. The ancients were using wheel-like rollers to move heavy loads long before somebody hit on the idea of attaching roller slabs to a stick and placing a load on it.]

[Jon]

[Actually, it's the axle, not the wheel that is the big invention. The ancients were using wheel-like rollers to move heavy loads long before somebody hit on the idea of attaching roller slabs to a stick and placing a load on it.]

This is a great point about the axle.

I think there had to be isolated instances of Mesoamerican use of carts or barrows of some sort, even if their use wasn't commonplace, or they weren't formally "invented". It just doesn't seem enough of a cognitive leap from a roller to a wheel that nobody would figure it out.

[mklotz]

This is a great point about the axle.

I think there had to be isolated instances of Mesoamerican use of carts or barrows of some sort, even if their use wasn't commonplace, or they weren't formally "invented". It just doesn't seem enough of a cognitive leap from a roller to a wheel that nobody would figure it out.

Yes, indeed. Wheels and pulleys seem so intuitive once one sees rollers and ropes. Construction tools didn't achieve then the cultural significance that tools receive today so they weren't preserved as icons or grave goods. Even when the occasional tool was interred, the fact that it was made of a perishable material meant we'd never see it.

Archaeologists conjecture that the Egyptians erected obelisks by having pullers on the ground pull on ropes strung over A-frames to get the necessary angle to pull the obelisk vertical. If one pictures that, it's not much of a leap to visualize a crude crane.

Also, the Egyptians had beautifully engineered war chariots. They understood how to construct strong, light-weight spoked wheels and suspensions suited to using the chariot floor as a platform for archers firing on the run. If they could demonstrate this level of sophistication for war/sport building wheel barrows or other wheeled devices would have been a doodle. It's true that barrows wouldn't have been useful in the sandy desert but, if you can build the removable scaffolding to build a pyramid, temporary clay or even stone roads would be easy if you were going to spend thirty years at the construction site.

The take away here is: our estimates of the technological sophistication of early peoples are very low because of the durability of their tools and cultures that did not ascribe high value to the efforts of their workers.