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.]