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Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to Invention. My name is Robert lamp

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Speaker 1: and I'm Joe McCormick, and just heads up. This is

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Speaker 1: going to be part one of a two part episode

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Speaker 1: because we get going on wheels and we can't stop. Robert,

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Speaker 1: I thought today we should start with some poll results.

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Speaker 1: Are you ready to consult the masses with me? Nothing's

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Speaker 1: more exciting than starting with poll results. Let's do it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So in Time magazine and Qualcom, they partnered to do

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Speaker 1: a survey. They pulled more than ten thousand people across

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Speaker 1: seventeen countries to find out some views about invention and inventiveness.

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Speaker 1: And there's some interesting questions here we might want to

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Speaker 1: come back to in the future about public opinion about

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Speaker 1: how invention happens. But uh, they asked people to rank.

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Speaker 1: As one of the questions here, what are the most

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Speaker 1: important inventions of all time? And three got singled out

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Speaker 1: in the results here. You had the Internet, all right,

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Speaker 1: you know it's a great eight invention. A terrible invention

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Speaker 1: is the Voldemort of inventions. Okay, Yeah, it's like odin

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Speaker 1: it's wise and tricksy, it's great and terrible. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean that that's all inventions. Really, any kind of any

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Speaker 1: kind of fabulous new technology is going to bring at

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Speaker 1: least equal portions of both. I got the second one

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Speaker 1: is electricity. I'd say that's a really good qualifier that

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Speaker 1: should be near the top. Yeah. Uh. Then the third

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Speaker 1: one singled out as the most important is the wheel. Now,

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Speaker 1: these three are all strike me as very different because

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Speaker 1: electricity is not a technology. We invented the technology to

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Speaker 1: utilize electricity and to harness its power. Uh And and likewise,

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Speaker 1: as we'll discuss, similar with the wheel, the Internet, we're

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Speaker 1: still trying to figure out how to actually harness it

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Speaker 1: and keep it from you know, shocking us. Yeah, there

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Speaker 1: is no internet in nature, is there? No? Not? And

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Speaker 1: people might say there are no wheels in nature, though

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Speaker 1: you could make an argument either way on that, and

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Speaker 1: we'll come back to that in a minute. But it's

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Speaker 1: true that people really do often single out the wheel

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Speaker 1: as like the most important invention in history. Right. It's

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Speaker 1: it's in all the Gary Larson cartoons for a reason. No, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're there, at least they're they're probably more than two.

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Speaker 1: But I ran across at least to Gary Larson cartoons

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Speaker 1: about caveman inventing the wheel. We're trying to invent the wheel,

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Speaker 1: generally getting something drastically long wrong, like like riding strapped

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Speaker 1: to the outside of it because you're about to go

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Speaker 1: down the hill. There's so many it is, there's so

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Speaker 1: many bits of fiction that have explored the idea of

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Speaker 1: inventing or reinventing the wheel. The Hulu show Future Man

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Speaker 1: recently explored this with a time traveler going to a

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Speaker 1: post apocalyptic future and and and having a job in

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Speaker 1: this primitive society as a wheelmaker, and so he keeps

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Speaker 1: trying to improve upon the design and it's you know,

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Speaker 1: there's they're they're catching on fire, they're they're they're falling

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Speaker 1: over until he finally gets the design right. Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I love how it's it's this cliche that it's the

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Speaker 1: quintessential example of like an already perfected technology that you

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Speaker 1: don't need to mess with anymore. Right, Like the the

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Speaker 1: cliche is, let's not reinvent the wheel, meaning let's not

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Speaker 1: waste time overthinking something right, sort of equivalent to if

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Speaker 1: it ain't broke, don't fix it. Though I think this

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Speaker 1: is ironic given what we're going to talk about in

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Speaker 1: today's episode because throughout history the wheel has undergone lots

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Speaker 1: of reinventions and refinements that make it work better or

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Speaker 1: adapt it to a particular use. Let's not reinvent the

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Speaker 1: wheel is actually a really stupid saying, because we're constantly

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Speaker 1: reinventing the wheel, and we're much better off for those reinventions. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like in this episode, we're not even going to really

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Speaker 1: get into the tire all that much. But certainly the

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Speaker 1: next time you need a new tire for your vehicle,

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Speaker 1: just go to the mechanic and ask for a wheel.

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Speaker 1: Give me one of those wheels. It's it's it hasn't

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Speaker 1: been improved upon since medieval or or prehistoric times. Right,

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Speaker 1: just just throw a wheel on there. I don't care

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Speaker 1: how what kind, Just just put it on their stone,

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Speaker 1: would doesn't matter. Well, this brings up a really good

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Speaker 1: point that we should make at the beginning. It's a

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Speaker 1: caveat that we must raise. While the wheel is in

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Speaker 1: a way a simple machine, it's simple and principle, the

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Speaker 1: history of the wheel is a vast, complex subject, full

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Speaker 1: of questions that aren't yet and may never be answered

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Speaker 1: or solved, like where and when the wheel was truly

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Speaker 1: first invented that. We'll talk about some ideas about that today. Uh,

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Speaker 1: there's just obviously not a chance we can do justice

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Speaker 1: to the entire history of the wheel in a single episode.

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Speaker 1: So I think today we're gonna have to consider this

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Speaker 1: sort of a a first foray, trying to cover some

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Speaker 1: of the basics, some interesting observations or things that seemed

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Speaker 1: interesting to us, and leave ourselves the opportunity to come

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Speaker 1: back and visit more the particulars from the invention history

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Speaker 1: of wheel technology in the future. For example, as you

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Speaker 1: say about tires, a you know, we we wouldn't have

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Speaker 1: the wheeled vehicles we have today without tires, and that's

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Speaker 1: just something that we didn't even get into. Now. We

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Speaker 1: typically consider wheels, again, the product of human ingenuity alone.

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Speaker 1: Yet the basic form pops up in nature as well,

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Speaker 1: and not only in the form of creatures that can

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Speaker 1: curl up into productive balls. What's your favorite creature that

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Speaker 1: curls up into a protective ball, I mean, sonic, the hedgehog. Um. Actually,

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Speaker 1: there are there are a few that come to mind.

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Speaker 1: I'll get to get to one in a second. Um.

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Speaker 1: One animal we do have to focus in on is

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Speaker 1: certainly the rhoda for the microscopic aquatic animal whose very

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Speaker 1: name is Latin for wheel bearer. Okay, so does it

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Speaker 1: have wheels? Does it roll around in the microscopic world?

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Speaker 1: Not exactly, but it's the name is a reference to

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Speaker 1: the crown of cilia around the rhodofer's mouth, which move

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Speaker 1: rapidly to aid locomotion and feeding. But contrary to its name,

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Speaker 1: they don't. They themselves don't actually rotate, so it's more

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Speaker 1: kind of like circle bearer. Yeah. Now you do have

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Speaker 1: creatures like the mount Lyle salamander and the mother of

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Speaker 1: pearl caterpillar, both of which curl their bodies into hoop

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Speaker 1: type forms in the little ball all like forms and

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Speaker 1: can roll away from threats in their hilly environments. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: likewise the Robert Have you ever seen video of the

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Speaker 1: wheel spider? Oh? I don't think I have no. This

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Speaker 1: is really cool that it shows up in some documentaries.

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Speaker 1: So it's a spider that's native to the Namib Desert,

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Speaker 1: and the wheel spider is it's a groundwalking spider. Obviously

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Speaker 1: it's in the desert. It's a huntsman spider. It's not

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Speaker 1: a web spinner, but it burrows down in the sand

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Speaker 1: dunes of the desert, and it has a mortal enemy,

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Speaker 1: a parasitoid wasp. Now, even if you don't like spiders,

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Speaker 1: if you don't know much about parasitic wasps, watching what

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Speaker 1: a parasitic wasp does to a spider can be. This

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Speaker 1: is worse than any horror movie. It's like the most

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Speaker 1: horrifying thing. If you're sympathizing with the spider. If you're

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Speaker 1: on team Spider, which I guess you are, Joe, I

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Speaker 1: guess I am. You're you're into just like putting an

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Speaker 1: egg on something that ends up eating that thing. I

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Speaker 1: know your general proclivities. I'm well, I'm on team Wasp

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Speaker 1: whenever it's wasp versus Spider. If it's Spider, this is

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Speaker 1: pretty much anything else. I'm intamed spiders. Well, I guess

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Speaker 1: that's the other way to think about it, that the

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Speaker 1: wasp is a miracle of nature that is really awesome.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, So the parasitic wasp lays an egg on

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Speaker 1: the spider after paralyzing the spider, then the egg hatches

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Speaker 1: and the larva can eat the spider at leisure, sometimes

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Speaker 1: sort of from the inside out. Uh So, when a

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Speaker 1: wasp attacks, obviously this spider is desperate to escape. It

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Speaker 1: doesn't want to get paralyzed and eaten by a larva.

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Speaker 1: But it can't crawl across the dunes fast enough to

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Speaker 1: get away from the wasp. So what does it do

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Speaker 1: if it can? The wheel spider cart wheels down a

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Speaker 1: sand dune, rolling away at high speed to escape becoming

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Speaker 1: a host. And I've read that it can travel it

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Speaker 1: like more than forty revolutions per second. That's awesome. And

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Speaker 1: again this is this is dependent though upon a hilly environment,

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Speaker 1: you know, some sort of um slope down which it

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Speaker 1: may roll. Yeah, and the spider being near the top

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Speaker 1: when it gets attacked, right like if it's at the

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Speaker 1: bottom when it gets attacked, no dice. But of course

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Speaker 1: these rolling in almost in a way or not true

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Speaker 1: wheels in a technological sense, because when humans use wheels,

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Speaker 1: what's crucial is that the wheel is paired with an axle,

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Speaker 1: and that the wheel and axle together provide continuous rotational

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Speaker 1: force that can be used to move a fixed body.

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Speaker 1: So it's not just a wheel rolling by itself. Right

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Speaker 1: with thag and the Gary Larson cartoon tape to the

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Speaker 1: outside of a round stone rolling down a hill, So

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Speaker 1: the question is is there anything more like a true

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Speaker 1: wheel in the natural world where something rotates around a

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Speaker 1: fixed body to move it. I mean, there's nothing quite

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Speaker 1: like a wheel uh in nature. But there is a

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Speaker 1: rare example of a similar movement that takes place, and

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Speaker 1: that's with bacterial flagellum uh structure found in species such

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Speaker 1: as E. Coli. Uh. The flagellum essentially amounts to a

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Speaker 1: long helical screw that rotates to propel the bacterium through

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Speaker 1: its environment, much like a boat's propeller. Yeah, and a

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Speaker 1: boats propeller isn't pretty much a wheel, I would say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: depends on the same sort of movement. Now, of course,

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Speaker 1: lots of things in the natural world that are not

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Speaker 1: alive also roll. Oh yeah, I mean snowballs are going

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Speaker 1: to roll downhill and get bigger. Um, pebbles are going

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Speaker 1: to roll uh. So that you know, these are certainly

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Speaker 1: examples that early people would have been in various cases,

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Speaker 1: had had access to they could have seen in action

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Speaker 1: and seen what rolling consists of. But another one we

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Speaker 1: often forget about is the rolling world of poop. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, consider, for instance that the near constant poops

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Speaker 1: of the goat are essentially self hiding rolling away from

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Speaker 1: these hill roamers, which gives them an advantage against stalking

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Speaker 1: predators with a nose for their scent. And then on

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Speaker 1: the other end of the spectrum you have the poop

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Speaker 1: of the wombat, that is, that is more cubicle in shape.

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Speaker 1: And one of the theories here is that since their

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Speaker 1: poop is an essential calling card for other members of

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Speaker 1: their species, like essential for you know, territory and mating

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Speaker 1: and so forth with the wombat, it pays for these

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Speaker 1: poops to not roll away and hide themselves, and thus

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Speaker 1: they have this kind of cubicle structure to them. Um.

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Speaker 1: And then in addition to poop, various seeds and fruit

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Speaker 1: as well, uh certainly roll away after they have fallen

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Speaker 1: and outside of the actual uh you know, movement of rolling.

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Speaker 1: We should also note that the basic form of the

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Speaker 1: wheel is but what a circle a disc? And one

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Speaker 1: needs only glimpse the sun or the moon in the

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Speaker 1: sky or see various other circular forms in nature to

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Speaker 1: grasp the idea of if not a disk in rolling motion,

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Speaker 1: then at least a disk like you it's not it's

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Speaker 1: it's it's essential shape can be found fairly easily in

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Speaker 1: the natural world. Absolutely. Now, one of the things I

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Speaker 1: think we have to also acknowledge upfront is that when

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Speaker 1: people say that the wheel is like the most important

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Speaker 1: invention of all time, I think what they're usually thinking

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Speaker 1: of is the wheel for transportation. But we should also

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Speaker 1: know acknowledge that, like the wheel is like way bigger

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Speaker 1: than just transportation applications, even in technology. Are you saying

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Speaker 1: like they could be a complete psychopath and they're like, well,

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Speaker 1: the breaking wheel obviously the greatest invention. How did we

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Speaker 1: ever strap people down and break all their limbs before that?

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Speaker 1: That is, no, they they're missing out on that. But no,

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Speaker 1: I was thinking more of, uh, we like the milling

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Speaker 1: wheel or the Potter's wheel. I mean, these these are

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Speaker 1: incredibly important inventions, but I think they're not usually what

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Speaker 1: people have in mind when they think of the wheel. Right,

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Speaker 1: So we're not going to really explore the like milling

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Speaker 1: wheel Potter's wheel in this episode, but just to give

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Speaker 1: you everybody an idea of the time frame we're talking

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Speaker 1: about here. The Potter's wheel was common in Mesopotamia in

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Speaker 1: the Near East from thirty five hundred BC onward, and

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Speaker 1: introduced into Egypt and the Aegean region around BC. And

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Speaker 1: this is simply the basic idea here is it's a

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Speaker 1: centrifugual force that allows the potter to squeeze and shape uh.

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Speaker 1: The the the the the item that they're crafting here

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Speaker 1: allows for better and faster production of pottery, and I

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Speaker 1: would guess more uniform as well. Right. Yeah. And then

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Speaker 1: of course we have wheels that exists purely for religious purposes,

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Speaker 1: such as the prayer wheels of Tibet, where it served

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Speaker 1: as a mechanical manifestation of the Wheel of Dharma. And

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Speaker 1: up until the twentieth century I've read virtually this was

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Speaker 1: virtually the only Tibetan use for the wheel as it

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Speaker 1: and it was just a device for activating mantras to beat.

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Speaker 1: After all, is a mountainous region where you can imagine

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Speaker 1: that the carts and chariots would be of of limited use.

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Speaker 1: That being said, Buddhist concepts, including the Wheel of Dharma,

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Speaker 1: entered Tibet by way of India, where the wheel dates

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Speaker 1: back you know, many thousands of years. Uh, and this

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Speaker 1: would have the Buddhist concepts would have entered into Bat

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Speaker 1: around the seventh century. See. I mean it is interesting

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Speaker 1: the extent to which the idea of the wheel has

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Speaker 1: permeated culture and language like that, I can scarcely think

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Speaker 1: of the idea of something recurring without recourse to the

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Speaker 1: image of the wheel. Yeah, and that's something that we're

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Speaker 1: going to keep coming back to again and again. It's like,

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Speaker 1: the technology of the wheel travels, but so does the

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Speaker 1: idea of the wheel. The symbolic legacy of the wheel,

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Speaker 1: you know, ancient technology that we can then use to

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Speaker 1: try and understand the human experience, or the passage of time,

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Speaker 1: or the cosmos, or the machinations of the gods. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean I have no way to prove this, but

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Speaker 1: I have to wonder, like, do do cultures that use wheels?

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Speaker 1: Are they more likely to think of history in terms

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Speaker 1: of recurring cycles than cultures that don't. Well, certainly this

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Speaker 1: was the older way of looking at you know, at time,

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Speaker 1: was the cyclical nature of it. So so it does

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Speaker 1: it does make sense that those two would go hand

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Speaker 1: in hand. Now. Of course, the important thing to note

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Speaker 1: about all of this is that even though the wheel

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Speaker 1: is an ancient invention and it's hard to nail down

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Speaker 1: exactly when it comes about, there was a time in

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Speaker 1: various cultures before the wheel, or at least before the

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Speaker 1: wheel was something that could really be utilized, but before

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Speaker 1: even the simplest wheel vehicle load was limited by the back.

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Speaker 1: Then in snowy climates, sled and ski technology developed because

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Speaker 1: you don't need a wheel for that. You just need

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Speaker 1: something you can drag through the across the surface of

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Speaker 1: the snow. Um other in other areas, you're limited by

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Speaker 1: animal carrying capacity. Right if you've domesticated a you know,

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Speaker 1: a horse or an ox or some other creature that

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Speaker 1: can that can carry things on its back for you,

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Speaker 1: so you do not have to carry them on your

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Speaker 1: back draft animals or pack animals. Yes, though certainly these

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Speaker 1: were advanced cultures. They had they had they had their technology. Well,

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Speaker 1: this is going to be something that will come back

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Speaker 1: throughout the episode, which is I think we want to

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Speaker 1: somewhat challenge the idea that the main uh sort of

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Speaker 1: bottleneck in the die option of wheeled technology is the

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Speaker 1: invention stage. I think actually we were gonna see some

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Speaker 1: pretty good evidence that you could perfectly understand the concept

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Speaker 1: of a wheel and even use it in some contexts

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Speaker 1: without transitioning your culture to wheel based transport. In general,

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Speaker 1: because it's not as useful to you as it might

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Speaker 1: be to somebody else. Now, before the wheel, if we're

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Speaker 1: gonna try and imagine the the the precursor to the wheel,

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Speaker 1: it's likely a sledge type operation where and and this

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Speaker 1: would have worked exceedingly well in the snow. And this

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Speaker 1: was the kind of technology that was likely used to

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Speaker 1: haul stones to stone hinge. Yeah. We we've talked about

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Speaker 1: the building of the Pyramids on stuff to blow your

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Speaker 1: mind before. And one of the amazing things about the

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Speaker 1: Pyramids is the idea that we all the evidence seems

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Speaker 1: to indicate the Pyramids were built without wheels, you know,

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Speaker 1: the moving these gigantic blocks of stone across the desert

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Speaker 1: and and stacking them without the use of wheel. How

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Speaker 1: did they do it? Well, there's some evidence that they

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Speaker 1: they use teams to move them across the sand, dragging

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Speaker 1: along and then sometimes I think one of the insights

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Speaker 1: that's come along recently is that archaeologists believe that they

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Speaker 1: had this process of wetting the sand in front of

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Speaker 1: the loads as they would be dragged along through the

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Speaker 1: across the ramps and through the desert. But that just

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Speaker 1: shows you you can do amazing things without wheeled transport. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and certainly we can all Like if we were just

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Speaker 1: thrown into a random backyard with no access to wheels

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Speaker 1: and we had to move a bunch of lumber around,

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Speaker 1: I think we could all happen upon the technology of

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Speaker 1: the sledge pretty easily. You know, where you just need

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Speaker 1: some some horizontal beams kind of a fix together. You

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Speaker 1: can pile stuff on that, and then you can just

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Speaker 1: you can drag it. And then if you get to

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Speaker 1: a point where you're stuck in mud or or snow

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Speaker 1: or what have you. Uh, something you could do is

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Speaker 1: to roll some timber underneath there. Uh, you know, put it,

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Speaker 1: put a kind of like a round, you know, limbless

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Speaker 1: portion of a tree log or something under the front,

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Speaker 1: and then pull it over and then collect your log

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Speaker 1: from the back and then put it back in the

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Speaker 1: front again. Um, you know, so you're feeding it like that.

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Speaker 1: And then the next logical step beyond that is to

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Speaker 1: set these logs, these timber rollers in place between pegs

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Speaker 1: and so this would be you know, basically a wheel

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Speaker 1: design without a true axle. And this would have been

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Speaker 1: like the the very earliest sort of immediate precursor to

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Speaker 1: a wagon and I think there are some examples of

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Speaker 1: early wheeled vehicles that, while they had wheels and an axle,

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Speaker 1: rather than the axle being locked to the vehicle in

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Speaker 1: some kind of like a closed clasp, instead they sat

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Speaker 1: beneath grooves and the weight of the cart would be

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Speaker 1: would keep them in the grooves. Yeah. I was tempted

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Speaker 1: to say, it's kind of like the cars that the

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Speaker 1: Flintstones had, but but they have something completely different. They

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Speaker 1: seem to have an axle, right, but then it's a

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Speaker 1: roller for the front wheels and the rear wheels. Of course,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm embarrassed to say I am just failing

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Speaker 1: to picture a flint Stones car right now. I can't

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Speaker 1: think of it. Okay, well this we'll have to come

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Speaker 1: back to this later. The Flintstones car, to what extent

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Speaker 1: does it or does it certainly not fat into any

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Speaker 1: uh any level of of of wheel innovation over the

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Speaker 1: course of human history. Well, you know, one of the

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Speaker 1: things about the Flintstones car that actually is going to

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Speaker 1: be useful is the idea that the Flintstones car, while

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Speaker 1: being a wheeled vehicle, is powered by humans. And plenty

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Speaker 1: of wheeled vehicles throughout history have not been powered by animals,

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Speaker 1: but have been pushed or dragged by human beings. Isn't

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Speaker 1: it odd though that the not to spend too much

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Speaker 1: time on the technology of the flintstones, but they utilized

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Speaker 1: um animal labor in pretty much every other aspect of

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Speaker 1: their society, Like their garbage disposal is a small dinosaur.

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Speaker 1: You know, every household gadget is an enslaveive dinosaur. And

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Speaker 1: yet for their cars they just run around, they use

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Speaker 1: their own foot powers. It's a bit odd. I think

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Speaker 1: I am picturing their cars now. If I'm picturing correctly,

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Speaker 1: their wheels are too wide. There'd be way too much friction.

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Speaker 1: Surely there's been a MythBusters one. Alright, well, let's take

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Speaker 1: our first break, and when we come back, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: try and trace down the origin or origins of the wheel. Alright,

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Speaker 1: we're back, Okay. Now, As we said early on, the

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Speaker 1: fact is nobody knows for sure when the wheel was

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Speaker 1: first invented. We do have some evidence about the times

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Speaker 1: in history when it was first appearing in wide use.

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Speaker 1: We have some archaeological evidence, some you know, visual pictographic records, um.

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Speaker 1: But still the question is not fully settled. Who first

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Speaker 1: invented the wheel and when and where. The only thing

363
00:19:51,280 --> 00:19:54,560
Speaker 1: we can really be sure of is that Gary Larson

364
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Speaker 1: is is probably wrong. It was probably not a Stone

365
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Speaker 1: Age technolo oology. More likely this is something that is

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Speaker 1: emerging uh as as humans are are leaving the Stone

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Speaker 1: Age for the Bronze Age. Right. Yeah, pretty much all

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Speaker 1: the experts, I think tend to put it somewhere within

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Speaker 1: the boundaries of the fourth millennium BC, so like three

370
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Speaker 1: thousand BC to four thousand BC. And we'll be discussing

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Speaker 1: a couple of books that offer different theories about this now.

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Speaker 1: While we will be talking about the wheel as an invention,

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Speaker 1: I think one thing we want to emphasize is that

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Speaker 1: we shouldn't necessarily assume that any place and time in

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Speaker 1: history where we find a lack of wheel technology, whether

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Speaker 1: that's you know, the whole world earlier on or cultures

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Speaker 1: that didn't use a lot of wheel transport even more recently,

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Speaker 1: that we should attribute that to the lack of the

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Speaker 1: ability to come up with the idea of a wheel.

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Speaker 1: Because to the contrary, I think there are lots of

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Speaker 1: good reasons to believe that many cultures throughout history perfectly

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Speaker 1: understood the concept of a wheel, like we already touched

383
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Speaker 1: on the tibett An example, and and we'll be coming

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Speaker 1: back around to the the South and meso American example exactly.

385
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Speaker 1: So they, yeah, they understood the idea of a wheel

386
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Speaker 1: just fine. They simply didn't have much use for it

387
00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:16,919
Speaker 1: in transport and could meet their transport needs better in

388
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Speaker 1: their environment with humans and animals than with wheeled vehicles.

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Speaker 1: Uh so, And just as a quick analogy, this isn't

390
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:26,840
Speaker 1: a perfect analogy, but just let's play a little imagination game.

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Speaker 1: Imagine yourself suddenly dropped into a Neolithic context because the

392
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Speaker 1: world without highways and all that stuff. How useful now

393
00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:38,600
Speaker 1: is your extremely advanced twenty first century car if you

394
00:21:38,640 --> 00:21:41,239
Speaker 1: want to move stuff around, And that's a car with

395
00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:44,600
Speaker 1: rubber tires and suspension and all this stuff that the

396
00:21:44,640 --> 00:21:48,479
Speaker 1: earliest four wheeled vehicles didn't have, right, you would have

397
00:21:48,600 --> 00:21:51,960
Speaker 1: to even assuming you had a four wheel drive vehicle,

398
00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:56,080
Speaker 1: a nice you know, like just the the most urbust rural,

399
00:21:56,920 --> 00:22:00,200
Speaker 1: mudd in truck you could possibly um, you know, acquire fire,

400
00:22:00,280 --> 00:22:02,639
Speaker 1: and you took that with you back in time. You

401
00:22:02,680 --> 00:22:06,159
Speaker 1: hook that up to the flux capacitor. You know, the

402
00:22:06,359 --> 00:22:10,439
Speaker 1: only certain environments would really uh really work for you

403
00:22:10,480 --> 00:22:13,320
Speaker 1: and then only until you ran out of gasoline. Yeah. True, Well, okay,

404
00:22:13,480 --> 00:22:16,040
Speaker 1: let's ignore the gasoline and say your cars being pulled

405
00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:19,280
Speaker 1: by horses or pushed by humans, or even you need

406
00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:21,160
Speaker 1: to need garbage to put in there, like the flux

407
00:22:21,200 --> 00:22:24,320
Speaker 1: capacity exactly. Yeah, You're you're going to run into problems

408
00:22:24,440 --> 00:22:26,639
Speaker 1: very quickly, especially if you want to go in different

409
00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:29,360
Speaker 1: kinds of places with it. You. Let's say you get

410
00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:32,320
Speaker 1: to some uneven terrain or some mountains, or some mud

411
00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:35,400
Speaker 1: or some swamp. I mean, they're just suddenly you are

412
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Speaker 1: met with the reality that Earth is not made for cars,

413
00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:41,800
Speaker 1: and you can extend that principle to say that really

414
00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:45,639
Speaker 1: Earth is not made for wheels. Environments that are friendly

415
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Speaker 1: to wheels are generally environments we've made with wheels in mind.

416
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Speaker 1: This is sadly where I feel like the Mad Max movies,

417
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Speaker 1: especially a thunder Road, have really they've really done as

418
00:22:55,720 --> 00:22:59,760
Speaker 1: a disservice imagining a future in which these vehicles just

419
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:03,080
Speaker 1: see to roam everywhere. But I guess a desert environment

420
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:05,480
Speaker 1: has depicted in those films like that would maybe be

421
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Speaker 1: an example of the kind of environment where yes, post

422
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:12,240
Speaker 1: apocalyptic vehicles could run wild and a you know, essentially

423
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:16,840
Speaker 1: a a civilization that's sliding back towards neolithic times. Yeah,

424
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:19,600
Speaker 1: and they've got modern technology on their wheeled vehicles. Remember,

425
00:23:19,600 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 1: they got like dune buggy tires and stuff. And they've

426
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:26,000
Speaker 1: got old, decaying roads to drivers. Not not exactly perfect,

427
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:28,480
Speaker 1: but yeah, I I know what you're saying, but I'm

428
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:32,760
Speaker 1: just saying, imagine yourself traveling across the wilderness with cargo, uh,

429
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,199
Speaker 1: in a in a place without paved roads? Would you

430
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:37,800
Speaker 1: rather have a cart with wheels or a team of

431
00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:42,480
Speaker 1: pack mules. Now, humans carrying loads and animals carrying loads

432
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:46,200
Speaker 1: have inherent advantages that wheeled vehicles just don't have. They

433
00:23:46,240 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 1: can go around obstacles, they can you know, take their

434
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,399
Speaker 1: time with uneven footing and all that. They're just tons

435
00:23:52,480 --> 00:23:56,240
Speaker 1: of context where a wheeled vehicle, even a pretty advanced one,

436
00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:58,840
Speaker 1: is not super useful. Now. On the other hand, while

437
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:01,720
Speaker 1: we don't have to assume him that lack of inspiration

438
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:04,560
Speaker 1: was the main impediment to the adoption of wheel technology

439
00:24:04,600 --> 00:24:07,399
Speaker 1: at points throughout history, obviously the idea did have to

440
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:10,399
Speaker 1: occur to people, and so it is fun to think, like,

441
00:24:10,480 --> 00:24:13,640
Speaker 1: what were those moments like where ancient inventors were struck

442
00:24:13,680 --> 00:24:16,280
Speaker 1: with this idea. I just have to mention, I don't know,

443
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:18,520
Speaker 1: I don't know how good of an idea this is.

444
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,119
Speaker 1: But I at least found one very interesting and weird

445
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:25,359
Speaker 1: looking paper on this subject, which was um by Gerhard

446
00:24:25,440 --> 00:24:29,000
Speaker 1: Schultz in Contributions to Zoology in two thousand and eight,

447
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:32,560
Speaker 1: called Scarab the beatles at the interface of wheel invention

448
00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 1: in nature and culture. Of course, I mean the dung beetle.

449
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 1: But exactly yes. That when I at the time, I

450
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:41,639
Speaker 1: almost interrupted to say, like I'm going to talk about poop.

451
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:44,639
Speaker 1: I'm so excited, but I didn't. Okay, So here's how

452
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:47,800
Speaker 1: it comes in. Schultz writes in his abstract quote, the

453
00:24:47,840 --> 00:24:51,439
Speaker 1: combination of rotation and the use of low friction resistance

454
00:24:51,480 --> 00:24:55,200
Speaker 1: of circular and smooth surfaces to transport a heavy load

455
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:59,439
Speaker 1: as is seen in scarab beetles rolling dung pills is

456
00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:02,200
Speaker 1: the close this degree of similarity to a wheel found

457
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:05,679
Speaker 1: in nature. I think he's obviously he's excluding the like

458
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:08,040
Speaker 1: the bacterial flagellum, right right, I mean this would be

459
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:10,520
Speaker 1: an animal. This would be an example in nature that

460
00:25:10,520 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 1: that ancient people would have seen Yeah, see you with

461
00:25:13,160 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 1: the naked eye. Yeah, populations of dung rolling scarabs may

462
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:20,520
Speaker 1: have benefited from the early domestication of large mammals in

463
00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 1: the Middle East. I suggest that an increased opportunity to

464
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 1: observe pill rolling scare beetles has inspired humans to invent

465
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 1: the wheel. Now, who knows if that's actually true, if

466
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:33,959
Speaker 1: he's right at all about what he's saying about scara beetles,

467
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:37,240
Speaker 1: but it's not hard to conclude that observing one form

468
00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:40,159
Speaker 1: or another of rolling behavior in nature could possibly have

469
00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:44,160
Speaker 1: helped inspire the idea of rolling wheels and technology. Yeah,

470
00:25:44,160 --> 00:25:46,480
Speaker 1: I feel like I mean, he could be right. It's

471
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: a it's a fine hypothesis, but I would tend to

472
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: lean more towards is probably a number of things right right.

473
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:55,119
Speaker 1: It's seeing the scare of beetle, It's noticing the shape

474
00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 1: of the sun in the moon. It's uh, it's just

475
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:02,359
Speaker 1: kicking stones around and pebbles around and eventually uh, toying

476
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:05,919
Speaker 1: with some of the more constructed forums here. Now, we

477
00:26:06,000 --> 00:26:09,720
Speaker 1: do have some evidence that the wheel was not invented

478
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:13,879
Speaker 1: just once, but was independently invented at different times and

479
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:17,040
Speaker 1: places throughout history. Yeah, I was reading about this in

480
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: um in a book by anthropologist Brian M. Fagan along

481
00:26:21,400 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 1: with the number of Collaborators titled The Seventy Grade Inventions

482
00:26:24,560 --> 00:26:27,159
Speaker 1: of the Ancient World. He talks a good bit in

483
00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:29,200
Speaker 1: there about the wheel and he points out that, yeah,

484
00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:32,719
Speaker 1: it was probably invented at least twice, first somewhere between

485
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 1: Mesopotamia and the the in the Danube around the fourth

486
00:26:36,520 --> 00:26:41,440
Speaker 1: millennium BC, and then also somewhere in Mesoamerica between two

487
00:26:41,520 --> 00:26:44,399
Speaker 1: hundred BC and two hundred C. Right, And those are

488
00:26:44,440 --> 00:26:47,200
Speaker 1: just cases where we know that they were invented separately

489
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 1: because there would have been no contact in between there

490
00:26:50,320 --> 00:26:53,879
Speaker 1: to share the wheel technology. Right. Uh. And when we

491
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:57,000
Speaker 1: were looking at the Old World wheeled vehicle evidence, we're

492
00:26:57,000 --> 00:26:59,400
Speaker 1: basically looking at three different types of evidence. We're looking

493
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:03,200
Speaker 1: at depictions of vehicles or things, depictions that were pretty

494
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:05,920
Speaker 1: sure vehicles, because obviously you get in you get into

495
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:08,159
Speaker 1: problems with that. We've talked about that before, like is

496
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:11,159
Speaker 1: this an image of a mythological horse monster or just

497
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,040
Speaker 1: a horse in motion that sort of thing. Is this

498
00:27:14,119 --> 00:27:17,159
Speaker 1: actually a mythical unicorn that we're looking at, or is

499
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 1: this a profile drawing of an oryx with the two

500
00:27:21,280 --> 00:27:25,679
Speaker 1: horns lined up exactly. The second bit of type of evidence,

501
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:29,879
Speaker 1: we have clay models, usually clay of wagons or their wheels,

502
00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 1: and of course when we're getting into models, uh, sometimes

503
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:36,320
Speaker 1: it's a question of is this is this a toy?

504
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:38,159
Speaker 1: Was this a real is just or is this a

505
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:41,480
Speaker 1: small version of a real thing. And then the third

506
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: bit of evidence is actual vehicle remains, and it's it's

507
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:48,119
Speaker 1: actually I was really surprised at some of the reasons

508
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: why we find some of these vehicle remains. We'll get

509
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:53,120
Speaker 1: into it. And of course in all of this we're

510
00:27:53,160 --> 00:27:57,640
Speaker 1: not talking about like one particular model of wheel use.

511
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:03,680
Speaker 1: There's there's not one wheel technology, but multiple wheel technologies. Yeah, exactly. Now,

512
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:06,159
Speaker 1: a book that I was reading to prepare for this

513
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:11,400
Speaker 1: episode is called The Wheel Inventions and Reinventions by Richard W. Bullet,

514
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 1: Columbia University Press, and this book is really interesting. A

515
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:21,200
Speaker 1: Bullet identifies three classes of wheels, actually three basic streams

516
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,960
Speaker 1: of technology that that go in different directions and start

517
00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 1: at different times. First of all, you've got the wheel set,

518
00:28:27,880 --> 00:28:31,160
Speaker 1: and what makes this is that the wheels are fixed

519
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,120
Speaker 1: to the end of an axle and they turned together

520
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:36,720
Speaker 1: when the axle turns, so this would be a wheel set.

521
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:39,400
Speaker 1: It looks like a you know, like a barbell, and

522
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 1: the wheels don't rotate independently. The other version would be

523
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 1: you've got an axle and wheels do rotate independently, so

524
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: they can spin at different speeds and all that kind

525
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 1: of thing. And then finally you have this this thing

526
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 1: that doesn't show up until the modern world, which is

527
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: casters like you have on an office chair or a

528
00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 1: shopping card, and this rotates on an axle. But also

529
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:03,520
Speaker 1: so pivots in a socket above the wheel. These are

530
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: very useful if you want kind of omnidirectional rolling. Yes,

531
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:10,600
Speaker 1: types one and two bullet rights were He agrees that

532
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:13,479
Speaker 1: they were invented sometime between three thousand and four thousand

533
00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 1: b C. The caster came into use only about three

534
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:20,520
Speaker 1: hundred years ago. Uh and bullet has a has a hypothesis.

535
00:29:20,560 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: He makes an argument that I'll get into the details

536
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:25,520
Speaker 1: of in a minute that the first wheels to see

537
00:29:25,600 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: major you swore wheel sets like like you would see

538
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: on a train, you know, with the fixed wheels on

539
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: the ends of an axle, and they were used in

540
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:36,880
Speaker 1: the copper mines of the Carpathian Mountains of eastern Europe

541
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 1: around four thousand BC. And we'll get back and explore

542
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 1: that in a minute. But one of the things that

543
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 1: we should acknowledge is that each of these different types

544
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: of wheels will ignore the castors for a bit because

545
00:29:48,200 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: they're much more recent. Each of the other two types

546
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 1: have different advantages and disadvantages, Like wheel sets are easier

547
00:29:55,960 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: and cheaper to build. You can just you know, basically

548
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:01,440
Speaker 1: have like a square plank and then put round wheels

549
00:30:01,480 --> 00:30:04,040
Speaker 1: on each side with square holes to stay put. And

550
00:30:04,080 --> 00:30:06,560
Speaker 1: they're also less likely to have a wheel like come

551
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 1: off and have the cart turnover. But wheel sets have

552
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 1: a big problem, which is just imagine trying to move

553
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 1: a heavy cart with wheels on a fixed axle. Now

554
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: try to imagine turning it. Oh yes, yeah, this is

555
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:23,760
Speaker 1: a pain in the butt. Like you, this is gonna

556
00:30:23,760 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 1: be a real problem. So independently rotating wheels are much

557
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: much better at turning, basically better at doing anything other

558
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: than going in a straight line. But of course there

559
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 1: you know, they have their own drawbacks. The wheels can

560
00:30:38,200 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: come off, there's more problems with like friction and wear

561
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 1: and tear on the axles. And all that. Of course,

562
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:48,400
Speaker 1: cars used independently rotating wheels. Trains early on tended to

563
00:30:48,520 --> 00:30:51,479
Speaker 1: use wheel sets. Because they were on tracks, it's easier

564
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:53,800
Speaker 1: to ensure that they would only be steered through a

565
00:30:53,840 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 1: turn very gradually. Because there was no manual steering, all

566
00:30:57,680 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 1: the turns could be dictated by the placement of the tracks.

567
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 1: Another thing that Bullet points out this pretty interesting is

568
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:05,959
Speaker 1: that he says, basically throughout history, if you look all

569
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: around the world in places in times where wheels were used,

570
00:31:10,360 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 1: the two wheeled cart was much more common than the

571
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:16,720
Speaker 1: four wheeled card. And the main reason for this is

572
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: that the two wheeled cart is easier to steer and

573
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:23,720
Speaker 1: has less friction. Yeah, Like, basically a two wheeled cart

574
00:31:24,080 --> 00:31:27,239
Speaker 1: is kind of like a hybrid of of human and

575
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:31,320
Speaker 1: wheel or animal and or animal and wheel, whatever is

576
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:34,479
Speaker 1: is pulling or pushing the contraption. But when you have

577
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:38,000
Speaker 1: the four wheeled cart, yeah, it's it's it's almost like

578
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 1: all machine. And then of course you may have something

579
00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:43,760
Speaker 1: you're gonna have something pulling it as well. But that's

580
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: essentially when in this whole episode is we're talking about

581
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 1: the emergence of wheel technology. We're talking about the emergence

582
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 1: of cart technology. But the cart is the real invention.

583
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:58,520
Speaker 1: Here way various designs that use a pair of wheels

584
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: or four wheels or more more as a means of

585
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 1: transporting goods, people, et cetera. Now we've touched on this already.

586
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 1: But of course wheels are great if you have a

587
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:11,880
Speaker 1: smooth surface, like a smooth hard surface, like just like

588
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:14,720
Speaker 1: a flat rock face or something. Right, if you're in

589
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:18,120
Speaker 1: the desert of the Mad Max movies, you know, the

590
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: near the gifts, you're doing pretty well, but just throw

591
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:22,920
Speaker 1: in just a little mud in the situations gets gets worse,

592
00:32:23,480 --> 00:32:26,560
Speaker 1: thus limiting the use of wheels and making the road

593
00:32:26,760 --> 00:32:29,960
Speaker 1: unnecessary invention. Yeah, and just last episode we were talking

594
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 1: about roads. Of course, we'll have a few more things

595
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: to say about roads today. Now, when we look back

596
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 1: to the first actual wagons, we're looking at evidence around

597
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 1: b C. We're looking at the stuff in Kish and

598
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:48,560
Speaker 1: or you're looking at a narrow, two seaters, fixed axle

599
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: drawn by some sort of a beast. And most most

600
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 1: experts favor Mesopotamia as the birthplace of all the cart. Well,

601
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:01,400
Speaker 1: it disagrees with this, but this I think has been

602
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:03,240
Speaker 1: the consensus for a while this is this is the

603
00:33:03,280 --> 00:33:06,600
Speaker 1: general consensus, but again this is not something that we

604
00:33:06,760 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 1: can be certain of. But the thing is, though the

605
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 1: earliest evidence doesn't actually prove this out. Um there there's

606
00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:21,280
Speaker 1: evidence of Neolithic wheels in what's now Poland from UH

607
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:26,360
Speaker 1: fifty to thirty one hundred b c. Ceramic vase vases

608
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:29,640
Speaker 1: that depict four wheeled vehicles attached to a V shaped yoke.

609
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:32,320
Speaker 1: And then we have clay models of four wheeled vehicles

610
00:33:32,320 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: from Hungary same period. Would wheel remains from Switzerland and

611
00:33:35,880 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 1: Slovenia from around the same time as well. We also

612
00:33:38,480 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 1: have some five hundred burials of the Novo Titovka culture,

613
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:46,960
Speaker 1: which would have been somewhere between d and three thousand

614
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 1: b c. Uh And and here we have actual wagon remains,

615
00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 1: really considerable vehicle remains from surrounding cultures as well. And accordingly,

616
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 1: according to anthropologist Brian Fagan his book I said it earlier,

617
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:04,360
Speaker 1: along with the invention of the wheel, you also have

618
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:07,440
Speaker 1: the language of the wheel in es since you have

619
00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 1: the software of the wheel traveling with the hardware of

620
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 1: the wheel. And this is actually an interesting way that

621
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: people sometimes used to try to figure out what was

622
00:34:15,160 --> 00:34:18,520
Speaker 1: going on in ancient cultures when we don't have archaeological remains,

623
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 1: is looking at traces of what people had words for

624
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:25,319
Speaker 1: at different places and times, right, and so there's this whole, uh,

625
00:34:25,480 --> 00:34:28,280
Speaker 1: there's this whole practice of sort of of of tracking

626
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:32,279
Speaker 1: the language for wheel looking at how for instanceance Sumerian

627
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 1: it's something like gurger, and in Hebrew it's something like

628
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: gal call, and in Georgian it's something like gorgo um.

629
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:43,560
Speaker 1: What wagon technology would have reached India by the third

630
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:47,879
Speaker 1: millennium BC and China by one thousand BC, though by

631
00:34:47,880 --> 00:34:52,600
Speaker 1: that point chariot technology had actually outstripped it, reaching China

632
00:34:52,760 --> 00:34:56,520
Speaker 1: around twelve BC. So you know, you can just sort

633
00:34:56,560 --> 00:35:01,040
Speaker 1: of imagine the chart in your mind, a map of

634
00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 1: Eurasia and the Middle East and all these various, uh,

635
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:09,160
Speaker 1: you know, lines of communication as wheel technology and various

636
00:35:09,280 --> 00:35:13,440
Speaker 1: versions of wheel technology spread with trade and warfare. Now,

637
00:35:13,480 --> 00:35:17,240
Speaker 1: you might wonder, despite what you said earlier about about

638
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:20,440
Speaker 1: two wheeled carts being more popular, why then do we

639
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:24,319
Speaker 1: see more ancient four wheel carts in some of these uh,

640
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 1: these remains. Well, I wonder if that might have to

641
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: do with just the circumstances through which they're preserved exactly that.

642
00:35:30,840 --> 00:35:32,799
Speaker 1: Fagin suggests that it may be due to the fact

643
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:37,080
Speaker 1: that the four wheeled cart was a status vehicle for burial.

644
00:35:37,160 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 1: It's like being buried in your lexus. Yeah, and I

645
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:42,240
Speaker 1: mean also, I mean, how do you want to ride

646
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 1: to your grave? You know, perhaps wrapped up or even

647
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:48,279
Speaker 1: put into some sort of a box. Do you want

648
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 1: to be in a two person cart or you're just

649
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: gonna fall out? No, you want to You want to

650
00:35:51,520 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 1: be you know, up there laying nice and proper in

651
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:57,600
Speaker 1: a four wheeled cart. It it makes a certain amount

652
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: of sense. Um, ancient mummy in a shop card. Yeah,

653
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 1: here's something else that Fagan adds. Quote but the ownership

654
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 1: and use of the vehicles is far from understood. There

655
00:36:07,680 --> 00:36:11,879
Speaker 1: is ethnographic evidence. This suggests that when vehicles have been

656
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:15,719
Speaker 1: introduced to non vehicle societies, they may have become communal

657
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 1: property and require constant decision making concerning their use. Um.

658
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: So this is interesting because it does make us. It

659
00:36:23,560 --> 00:36:26,920
Speaker 1: forces us to rethink, like how a cart or a

660
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:30,120
Speaker 1: wheeled um, a bit of technology would have even fit

661
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:34,800
Speaker 1: into an ancient culture. Um. You know, certainly we we

662
00:36:34,800 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: we end up looking back in time. We want to

663
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 1: apply that Flintstone model right where we're just thinking about

664
00:36:40,160 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 1: modern cars in the way that uh, we use modern

665
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:46,080
Speaker 1: cars now. And then also, i mean you can throw

666
00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:48,440
Speaker 1: into the way we're using modern cars now is already changing.

667
00:36:48,440 --> 00:36:52,120
Speaker 1: We're getting into this whole rideshare culture that is drastically different.

668
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 1: Uh So Fagan also, you know, he spends a fair

669
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 1: amount of time with this. He also writes that it's

670
00:36:57,640 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: possible that the use of funeral cards in the late

671
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 1: fourth and early third century BC were so widespread that quote,

672
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 1: their religious purpose outweighed any functional constraints to maintain them. Alternatively,

673
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 1: they may have had such short use lives that their

674
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:17,720
Speaker 1: ritual wastage in burial may not have appeared so costly. Yeah,

675
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 1: so that's an interesting way of thinking about it as well.

676
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: It's like they didn't even have to work all that good. Yeah,

677
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:23,319
Speaker 1: I mean all you have to do it, All it

678
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 1: has to do is just take you from say that

679
00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:30,399
Speaker 1: you know, the temple grounds to the grave pit. Uh

680
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: and it as long as it doesn't fall apart, or

681
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:34,880
Speaker 1: if we go off the side of a cliff between

682
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:37,200
Speaker 1: those two points, you're good. Like, how good does the

683
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 1: construction on a coffin really have to be exactly now

684
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: this is this really blew me away? Uh, some of

685
00:37:45,120 --> 00:37:47,600
Speaker 1: you might be wondering, Well, you've talked about two wheeled carts,

686
00:37:47,680 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 1: we've talked about four wheeled cards, but what about the

687
00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: one wheeled card? What about the mighty wheelbarrow? Yeah? And

688
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 1: now one thing that might strike us as odd is

689
00:37:57,160 --> 00:37:59,720
Speaker 1: that in a Western context, I think we almost always

690
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:03,239
Speaker 1: think about the wheelbarrow as a tool of getting work done.

691
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:05,319
Speaker 1: You know, you put mulch in it or something and

692
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: roll it away. And the wheelbarrow is a wonderful, simple

693
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: little invention. It combines the wheel with the lever, Right,

694
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,279
Speaker 1: you get leverage by lifting up against the wheel, and

695
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 1: you don't have to carry all of the load and

696
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:17,439
Speaker 1: roll it off to wherever you need it. But it's

697
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 1: not always just forgetting work done, that's right. It's easy

698
00:38:21,040 --> 00:38:22,960
Speaker 1: to begrudge the wheelbarrow really and think of it as

699
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:25,880
Speaker 1: just this this crude but necessary step in like moving

700
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:29,319
Speaker 1: mult or something around. Right. Um, But but when you

701
00:38:29,400 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 1: look at what was done with the one wheeled cart

702
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 1: in in China, for instance, it feels like the term

703
00:38:37,040 --> 00:38:40,880
Speaker 1: wheelbarrow is inappropriate because because we're we're really limiting the

704
00:38:40,880 --> 00:38:44,360
Speaker 1: things that they did. The Chinese are actually the inventors

705
00:38:44,360 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 1: of the wheelbarrow, according to Fagan Uh and they attribute

706
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 1: its invention to one Zoo Lang, a third century CEE

707
00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,839
Speaker 1: general inventor, and of course wizard Um. It was known

708
00:38:56,880 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 1: as the wooden ox with blighting horse, and then were

709
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:04,120
Speaker 1: several different varieties that they mastered, including both push and

710
00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:09,160
Speaker 1: pull wear wheelbarrows, passenger wheelbarrows, systems that had better traction.

711
00:39:09,440 --> 00:39:14,360
Speaker 1: And check this out. A wheelbarrow with saals. Yes, sales

712
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 1: a sixteenth century invention at least, it may have gone

713
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 1: back further than that. And it had five to six

714
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:22,560
Speaker 1: foot or one and a half to one point eight

715
00:39:22,600 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: meter sails to deploy when to rain and winds permitted.

716
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:30,560
Speaker 1: So this is a land sailboat. Yeah, essentially. Yeah, but

717
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:34,880
Speaker 1: I would never have thought of the wheelbarrow like reaching

718
00:39:35,320 --> 00:39:39,720
Speaker 1: such heights of technological advancement. Again, it's it feels unfair

719
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:42,200
Speaker 1: to even call that a wheelbarrow. Now, I think you'd

720
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:43,880
Speaker 1: have to. I would assume you'd have to have a

721
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:46,360
Speaker 1: human steering it, right, Yeah, I would assume they'd have

722
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:50,360
Speaker 1: to be a human in the midst there. Now, otherwise

723
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 1: you're in for a wild ride. Well, with the wind involved,

724
00:39:53,960 --> 00:39:56,120
Speaker 1: it seems like it could get a kind of wild

725
00:39:56,160 --> 00:39:58,280
Speaker 1: for sure. All right, we're gonna take a quick break,

726
00:39:58,320 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 1: but we'll be right back. And we're back now. We

727
00:40:07,719 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, you know that the emergence of of wheels

728
00:40:11,160 --> 00:40:13,680
Speaker 1: in the New World in UM in South and meso

729
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 1: America for example, and UM. A lot of our main

730
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 1: evidence here revolves around models from El Salvador in Mexico

731
00:40:21,080 --> 00:40:24,560
Speaker 1: from two hundred BC to two and on through the

732
00:40:24,560 --> 00:40:28,800
Speaker 1: Spanish conquest as well. And what these are the evidence

733
00:40:28,840 --> 00:40:32,560
Speaker 1: we're looking at here are small scale wheeled animal toys.

734
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 1: So they don't look like carts, they're not toy wagons.

735
00:40:35,440 --> 00:40:39,240
Speaker 1: There are things like dogs and deer and even alligators

736
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:42,840
Speaker 1: with just simple wheels. Yeah. So an example would be

737
00:40:42,840 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 1: there's like a clay wheel dog from I think about

738
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred years ago that was made in what's now

739
00:40:48,280 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 1: southern Mexico and the old met culture. So it's it's

740
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 1: a clear sign that the concept of the wheel existed.

741
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 1: It was just it was for toys. It was not

742
00:40:57,000 --> 00:40:58,960
Speaker 1: something that was utilizing It's not like there were people

743
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 1: saying or some kid is like, father, why don't you

744
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:04,640
Speaker 1: make this into a vehicle of war and then the

745
00:41:04,920 --> 00:41:07,720
Speaker 1: father's laughing and saying, oh no, no, no, that's kids stuff.

746
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:09,719
Speaker 1: We would never But of course the question remains, like

747
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:13,760
Speaker 1: why why didn't they take this technology that they clearly

748
00:41:13,800 --> 00:41:16,799
Speaker 1: had his understanding that they had and scale it up. Now,

749
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:20,719
Speaker 1: one common explanation that's been given for this, I think

750
00:41:20,719 --> 00:41:23,880
Speaker 1: this was also given by the historian Jared Diamond and

751
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 1: like guns, germs and steal that author, his idea was

752
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:32,400
Speaker 1: that the indigenous American culture is never really developed wheeled

753
00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 1: transport at any kind of scale because they didn't have

754
00:41:35,840 --> 00:41:39,279
Speaker 1: large draft animals to move the wheeled vehicles around. Uh.

755
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:42,359
Speaker 1: That book I mentioned by Richard Bullet. Bullet doesn't think

756
00:41:42,400 --> 00:41:44,520
Speaker 1: that's a very good argument because he points out that

757
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: the human was very often the creature that moved we

758
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 1: old Vihoh yeah, I mean, let's just think back to

759
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 1: the wheelbarrow example. We were just given that the human

760
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:58,160
Speaker 1: can be the power behind various forms of the cart

761
00:41:58,560 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 1: and and certainly give and the brutality of human history.

762
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:05,640
Speaker 1: The human may be doing so willingly or under durest. Yeah.

763
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 1: So this brings us to this interesting question. We we

764
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: know that there are examples of places in places and

765
00:42:12,120 --> 00:42:15,360
Speaker 1: times in human history where people had invented the wheel,

766
00:42:15,600 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 1: they had the concept, like they knew how to make it,

767
00:42:18,560 --> 00:42:21,440
Speaker 1: they just didn't really use it. Like historians are very

768
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:23,879
Speaker 1: often wanting to answer the question of why so many

769
00:42:23,920 --> 00:42:27,480
Speaker 1: civilizations around the world never adopted widespread use of the wheel,

770
00:42:27,960 --> 00:42:31,239
Speaker 1: and Bullet sort of argues that the reason is it's

771
00:42:31,239 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 1: not that they didn't have the idea, it's not that

772
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:35,200
Speaker 1: they like didn't know how to use it, they were

773
00:42:35,239 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 1: just not impressed with the usefulness of wheeled vehicles for

774
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:42,560
Speaker 1: transport when human and animal transport generally worked just fine.

775
00:42:43,040 --> 00:42:45,959
Speaker 1: And Bullet points out that almost all cargoes that people

776
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:49,080
Speaker 1: are trying to move can actually just be separated into

777
00:42:49,160 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 1: loads of manageable size that can then be carried by

778
00:42:52,600 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 1: humans or pack animals, or can be dragged along on

779
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:58,800
Speaker 1: a sledge, and instead, he argues that we should flip

780
00:42:58,840 --> 00:43:04,040
Speaker 1: the question around their way, what made wheeled transport especially

781
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 1: useful at the times and places when it was widely adopted,

782
00:43:08,560 --> 00:43:12,480
Speaker 1: not why didn't everybody else widely adopted? And so this

783
00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 1: is bullets theory, he says, quote the wheel was invented

784
00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 1: for use in copper mines in the Carpathian Mountains of

785
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:22,839
Speaker 1: Eastern Europe, and the four wheeled mine cars in that

786
00:43:22,920 --> 00:43:26,520
Speaker 1: region were pushed by miners and equipped with wheel sets,

787
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:29,720
Speaker 1: that is, wheel assemblies in which the wheels are fixed

788
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:32,719
Speaker 1: to the ends of the axle, with the entire assembly

789
00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:36,840
Speaker 1: rotating together. In other words, he's saying that the wheeled vehicle,

790
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:39,560
Speaker 1: the first widespread use of the wheeled vehicle was as

791
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:45,000
Speaker 1: a local solution to a particular transportation problem, rather than

792
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:48,520
Speaker 1: this huge revolutionary breakthrough which would be of immediate and

793
00:43:48,560 --> 00:43:52,200
Speaker 1: obvious importance everywhere. So this is flipping on its head

794
00:43:52,239 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: the idea that, like, you know, how people answer these surveys,

795
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 1: they say, oh, yeah, the wheel, that's the greatest invention

796
00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:00,560
Speaker 1: of all time. He's actually saying, no, no, no, the

797
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:05,160
Speaker 1: wheel is not immediately and obviously useful in lots of contexts.

798
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:10,040
Speaker 1: It was immediately useful in a very particular context. Another

799
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 1: way of thinking about it is the first widespread use

800
00:44:12,760 --> 00:44:16,680
Speaker 1: of the wheel arose not as an example of engineering genius,

801
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:20,560
Speaker 1: but as an example of the particular mechanical usefulness of

802
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:24,640
Speaker 1: wheels in a very specific work environment. Okay, so how

803
00:44:24,640 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 1: does he make this case, Well, Bullet argues that the

804
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:31,640
Speaker 1: most accurate calibrated carbon dating of archaeological evidence shows that

805
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:34,720
Speaker 1: the wheel was being used in some places in Europe

806
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 1: at least as early as the archaeological evidence for wheels

807
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 1: in Mesopotamia. And we discussed a little bit about this earlier.

808
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:45,319
Speaker 1: Uh He says that the earliest known archaeological evidence of

809
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:48,840
Speaker 1: a wheeled object is also a toy. Like we've been saying,

810
00:44:48,840 --> 00:44:52,480
Speaker 1: it was a this this zebra striped bull with horns

811
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:56,960
Speaker 1: mounted on wheels from from a an ancient culture that

812
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:00,440
Speaker 1: existed in western Ukraine in the Carpathian Mountains, and the

813
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:03,800
Speaker 1: object is dated to some time between thirty nine fifty

814
00:45:03,960 --> 00:45:07,560
Speaker 1: and thirty six fifty BC. Now, again, as we've been discussing,

815
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:10,839
Speaker 1: the existence of a toy with wheels does not necessarily

816
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,880
Speaker 1: mean that the culture that produced it used large wheeled vehicles.

817
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:18,400
Speaker 1: Some people's obviously understood the concept of wheels for toys,

818
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:21,360
Speaker 1: but didn't have much use for them as transport. But

819
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:23,319
Speaker 1: of course it could be a bit of evidence if

820
00:45:23,360 --> 00:45:26,400
Speaker 1: coupled with some other evidence. So Bullet asks the question,

821
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 1: was there anything unique about the transportation needs of this

822
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:35,280
Speaker 1: mountainous region around four thousand b C. And he says, yes,

823
00:45:35,600 --> 00:45:38,920
Speaker 1: it was the emergence of tunneled copper mining in the

824
00:45:38,960 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 1: Carpathian Mountains. So he's saying that there's this period in

825
00:45:43,520 --> 00:45:46,800
Speaker 1: history known as the Copper Age. It predates the Bronze Age.

826
00:45:46,800 --> 00:45:49,480
Speaker 1: Before we're making a lot of bronze stuff. There was

827
00:45:49,520 --> 00:45:52,759
Speaker 1: this Copper Age, which he said began around fifty b C.

828
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:55,960
Speaker 1: In Serbia. And this was a metal working age that

829
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:59,440
Speaker 1: where copper or was was separated into pure metal and

830
00:45:59,560 --> 00:46:03,960
Speaker 1: used to fashion copper tools and trinkets and objects. But well,

831
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:06,840
Speaker 1: it says by the late Copper Age, most of the

832
00:46:06,960 --> 00:46:10,480
Speaker 1: low hanging fruit had been picked, like their surface copper

833
00:46:10,520 --> 00:46:13,920
Speaker 1: deposits around the world, but those had already been depleted

834
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:17,319
Speaker 1: because copper became valuable, and so people found all of

835
00:46:17,360 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 1: the exposed copper and mind it and is the demand

836
00:46:21,239 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 1: for copper remained or increased while surface copper supply decreased.

837
00:46:25,840 --> 00:46:28,960
Speaker 1: There was this incentive to dig tunnels into the rocks

838
00:46:29,000 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 1: to find deeper and deeper veins of copper to exploit. Uh.

839
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:35,680
Speaker 1: And so he says copper ore is valuable, but it's

840
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:37,880
Speaker 1: really dense, and he writes that it weighs about a

841
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:41,760
Speaker 1: hundred and forty pounds per cubic foot. That's really heavy,

842
00:46:42,160 --> 00:46:44,719
Speaker 1: and most of the ore is waste, Like, most of

843
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:46,760
Speaker 1: that weight that you're going to be moving around doesn't

844
00:46:46,800 --> 00:46:49,760
Speaker 1: actually turn into the metal that you can use. Stuff

845
00:46:49,760 --> 00:46:51,759
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to chip away and refine later, yeah,

846
00:46:51,840 --> 00:46:54,319
Speaker 1: or get or burn off. Yeah. So a cubic foot

847
00:46:54,320 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: of ore yields only about one to three pounds of

848
00:46:57,719 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 1: the refined metal, and it's a hundred and forty pounds

849
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:02,920
Speaker 1: of stuff you've got to take out of the mine.

850
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:06,120
Speaker 1: So he says, inside these mine tunnels, you would have

851
00:47:06,200 --> 00:47:10,560
Speaker 1: to be constantly carrying baskets of this extremely heavy ore

852
00:47:10,800 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 1: back outside, so they could be melted down in fires

853
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:17,839
Speaker 1: to separate the copper from the waiste product. And so

854
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:20,200
Speaker 1: then he's like, okay, think about the properties of these

855
00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 1: mine tunnels. They could be small, and sometimes the entrance

856
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 1: into them would have to be a vertical shaft before

857
00:47:26,520 --> 00:47:28,760
Speaker 1: you get to the tunnel part, which meant you probably

858
00:47:28,800 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 1: couldn't bring pack animals like oxen into the mines to

859
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 1: carry your ore baskets back out to the entrance for you.

860
00:47:36,320 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 1: On the other hand, the inside of the mine shaft

861
00:47:38,600 --> 00:47:42,719
Speaker 1: would have a relatively smooth rock surface that traveled in

862
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 1: a straight line as the floor. So Bullet argues that

863
00:47:45,880 --> 00:47:48,920
Speaker 1: this is what made late coper age minds the perfect

864
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:52,719
Speaker 1: environment for the first four wheeled vehicles in regular use

865
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:56,040
Speaker 1: for transport. The loads were very heavy, pack animals were

866
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:59,640
Speaker 1: not practical, and smooth stone surfaces on the floor of

867
00:47:59,680 --> 00:48:03,279
Speaker 1: the tell we're friendly to wheeled baskets or mine carts

868
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:06,000
Speaker 1: rather than being you know, covered in mud and obstacles

869
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:08,960
Speaker 1: and uneven terrain that that made wheels impractical. And a

870
00:48:08,960 --> 00:48:12,680
Speaker 1: lot of other environments. This is fascinating because it reminds

871
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:17,520
Speaker 1: me of of more modern examples of tunnel environments where

872
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:20,240
Speaker 1: wheels become a necessity. So I mean certainly large scale mining,

873
00:48:20,239 --> 00:48:23,640
Speaker 1: but I'm also thinking of smuggling tunnels, and even I

874
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:25,239
Speaker 1: want to say, it's been a while since I read

875
00:48:26,040 --> 00:48:28,600
Speaker 1: The Great Escape, but I believe they had to they

876
00:48:28,640 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 1: use some sort of wheels in that, didn't they. Oh,

877
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:32,799
Speaker 1: I don't know, I've never read it. I may have

878
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:35,160
Speaker 1: that wrong. I have to check by that back end man.

879
00:48:35,239 --> 00:48:37,399
Speaker 1: Maybe have to remove that section if I got that wrong.

880
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:40,960
Speaker 1: But but but certainly, yeah, if you're in a cramped

881
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 1: little tunnel, and you need to move even yourself along

882
00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:48,399
Speaker 1: much less cargo. Uh, there's no room for animals, there's

883
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:52,799
Speaker 1: limited rules, room for slinging anything over your back. The

884
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:56,040
Speaker 1: cart begins to make perfect sense, and we see analogies

885
00:48:56,080 --> 00:48:58,279
Speaker 1: to this in later technology that we have much better

886
00:48:58,320 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 1: records of, like the my environment was crucial to the

887
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:06,840
Speaker 1: development of railroads. Like rail based travel later on developed

888
00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:10,160
Speaker 1: when people were trying to get or out of minds,

889
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:13,760
Speaker 1: in fact, minds figuring to all kinds of stuff. Just coincidentally,

890
00:49:14,080 --> 00:49:16,080
Speaker 1: you know, the steam engine was also one of the

891
00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:18,520
Speaker 1: first big uses that it was developed for was not

892
00:49:18,560 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 1: for moving stuff around, but was for pumping water. Yeah,

893
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:24,319
Speaker 1: minds would flood and you had to pump them out,

894
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:26,360
Speaker 1: and that's what the steam engine was for a little

895
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:30,120
Speaker 1: preview of perhaps the future episode on steam technology. It's

896
00:49:30,120 --> 00:49:33,319
Speaker 1: a fast there's a fascinating history there as well. Absolutely, Yeah,

897
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:35,640
Speaker 1: I'd love to come back to that. So anyway, I

898
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:37,799
Speaker 1: just want to say in summary, we don't know that

899
00:49:37,880 --> 00:49:41,080
Speaker 1: bullets hypothesis here about the origins the wheel set is correct,

900
00:49:41,120 --> 00:49:43,439
Speaker 1: but I do think it's really interesting and if you'd

901
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:45,320
Speaker 1: like to read his full argument where he presents a

902
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:47,239
Speaker 1: whole bunch of evidence. You can check out his book.

903
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:51,080
Speaker 1: But if bullets argument is correct, the invention of the

904
00:49:51,120 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 1: wheel is truly a case of necessity being the mother

905
00:49:54,360 --> 00:49:57,400
Speaker 1: of invention, and that it's not that there was something

906
00:49:57,440 --> 00:50:01,160
Speaker 1: special about the inventor, but the is something special about

907
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:05,280
Speaker 1: the problem the inventor faced and the environment in which

908
00:50:05,360 --> 00:50:10,239
Speaker 1: that problem arose, not necessarily like unique genius or creativity,

909
00:50:10,239 --> 00:50:13,640
Speaker 1: but unique necessity. All right, So we're gonna leave it

910
00:50:13,680 --> 00:50:17,400
Speaker 1: there for this episode, but please join us for the

911
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:21,280
Speaker 1: next episode of Invention because we're going to discuss even

912
00:50:21,360 --> 00:50:23,440
Speaker 1: more about wheels and this and the next episode is

913
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 1: going to be the one where we get into the

914
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:27,200
Speaker 1: legacy of wheels. In the meantime, if you want to

915
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:29,600
Speaker 1: check out more episodes of Invention, head on over to

916
00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 1: invention pod dot com. That's where you'll find all those episodes.

917
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 1: You'll find links out to some social media accounts that

918
00:50:35,200 --> 00:50:38,000
Speaker 1: were active off on. You also find a link for

919
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:39,719
Speaker 1: our store where you can actually you can get a

920
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:42,400
Speaker 1: T shirt with the Inventional logo on it that is

921
00:50:42,440 --> 00:50:44,440
Speaker 1: available right now for your purchase. It's a fun way

922
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:46,600
Speaker 1: to support what we do here, but the best way

923
00:50:46,640 --> 00:50:48,880
Speaker 1: to support what we do here is to subscribe to

924
00:50:48,920 --> 00:50:51,640
Speaker 1: the show and rate and review us wherever you have

925
00:50:51,719 --> 00:50:54,200
Speaker 1: the power to do so. Huge thanks as always to

926
00:50:54,239 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: our excellent audio producer, Tari Harrison. If you would like

927
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:00,000
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback about this episode,

928
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:02,120
Speaker 1: it or any other, to suggest a topic for the

929
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 1: future or justice say hello. You can email us at

930
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:11,480
Speaker 1: contact at invention pod dot com, m