The Wheel

This is Sleepy History. Sleepy History is a production of Slumber Studios. To listen ad-free, get access to bonus episodes, and support the ongoing production of this show, check out our premium feed. It likely isn't something that you think about very often, the history and evolution of the humble wheel. And yet, it might be humankind's most important invention. In fact, much of modern life is indebted to its creation. But when and where was the wheel invented? And how was it used by early humans? What part did it play in the great turning points of history, from the Stone Age revolution to industrialization? We'll look for the answers to these questions and more tonight. So just relax and let your mind drift as we explore the sleepy history of the wheel. Our story begins in the place that is now called Iraq. But, 6,000 years ago, it was Mesopotamia. Here, a potter is taking a break outside his workshop and watching teams of local workers transport stone on top of logs. The sight of logs rolling beneath the slabs brings an idea to the potter's mind. Perhaps he might make his life a little easier if he were to try forming clay on a rotating stone block. This kind of scenario, according to experts, is likely what gave rise to the earliest wheels. However, much remains unknown about the wheels' precise origins, being that the invention is so very old. Archaeologists and historians have uncovered a wide range of evidence linked to ancient peoples across continents. For a long time, ancient Mesopotamia was thought to be the wheel's birthplace. There is also a site in Syria called Tel Halaf that houses a 7,000-year-old depiction of a wheeled vehicle. But recent findings suggest the wheel might have been used even earlier by the prehistoric tribes of Eastern Europe. It's generally agreed upon that the wheel came about during the Neolithic Revolution or New Stone Age, beginning around 10,000 BCE and ending around 2200 BCE. It was an eight-millennia-long agricultural revolution. People on the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia experienced a cultural shift in the way they lived. They moved away from the nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle towards a village-based lifestyle farming the land. Over time, more people came to settle in one place and built permanent homes for their families to live in. They domesticated animals, such as sheep and cattle, and farmed more crops to feed the increased population. Sumerian communities in ancient Mesopotamia became so large that they grew into some of the world's earliest cities. Eridu and Uruk were two such examples on the banks of the Euphrates River in present-day South Iraq. These were places that had their own languages and cultures, their own gods and goddesses, with temples built to honor them. They had a plethora of pottery, from bowls, cups, and dishes, to decorative statues fired from clay and painted. One of the earliest potter's wheels used for making such things was found in a dig at Ur, a short distance from Eridu. The Mesopotamian stone wheel is thought to have originated around around 3100 BCE. Other pieces found throughout the region suggest that the practice goes back even further. The method of making pottery by throwing clay on a wheel was likely commonplace in the Middle East from the fourth millennium BCE. Still, other pieces have been attributed to the Indus Valley Civilization, a few centuries later in modern India and Pakistan. It's possible that the oldest potter's wheel was found in western Ukraine, in eastern Europe. The nature of the site has given experts low confidence about the dates, so this claim is disputed. But it is possible this wheel originated in the mid-5th century BCE. Though pottery was being made long before the wheel's invention, it was a slower and more labor-intensive process. Generally, it was made by rolling clay into coils. These were stacked atop one another and then molded by hand. Suffice to say that with the potter's wheel, the process became faster and more efficient. The potter used one hand to rotate the stone wheel and the other to shape the clay in the middle of the stone. Later improvements in the 3rd century BCE led to the creation of the so-called fast wheel. This utilized what's known as the flywheel principle, whereby the heavy stone wheel is moved with a stick, building up energy through angular motion. After the initial push, the wheel moves by itself, building up momentum with each rotation. The fast wheel revolutionized pottery and ceramics. It allowed workers to create vessels of all shapes and sizes, and to produce far more per hour than they had done before. Other advancements would come millennia later, including the motor-driven wheels that are commonplace today, but it was the fast wheel, in particular, that paved the way for an early form of mass production. Whether the first wheels were used for pottery or transport, it might be surprising to some modern listeners to know that while it was an early invention, it actually came about quite a bit later than one might expect. Inventions that predated the wheel included needles, clothing, and boats. Metal casting seems to have come at about the same time. In a way, it seems odd that something we now consider so fundamental to everyday life could be invented after musical instruments, for instance. Then again, early humans took inspiration from nature. Ancient cooking forks, for example, resembled pronged tree branches, and clothing was both made of and mimicked the fur of bears and other animals. Perhaps as there's nothing in nature that moves quite like the wheel, it's more surprising that it was ever invented at all. Tumbleweeds are similar, although they bounce more erratically. The Egyptian scarab beetle is closer, the way it slowly rolls its dung. Closest of all is the turning of wooden logs which, as we've already mentioned, is likely where the idea came from. the wheel, that's how stone was first moved, over a pathway of tree trunks that rolled beneath it. Once the slab had shifted forward, logs at the back would be removed and carried to the front to extend the pathway. Certainly, it would have been a laborious process. requiring an army of workers to do so much heavy lifting. This method would be tweaked over the centuries at construction sites around the globe. In ancient Egypt, one technique to move large stone blocks was to dig canals, use logs for portage, and float the stone to the construction site. In another method, giant stone slabs were roped to wooden sledges. Teams of workers pulled the sledges on wet sand from limestone quarries to the site of the pyramids. Later, this method would be further refined. Stone blocks were fixed on sledges and pulled over logs, the latter partially buried in the ground. Over time, the heavy sledge caused grooves to be formed, resulting in what looked like wheels at either end of the log. The first wheels for transport came soon after, as the wood between these ends was shaved down into a rod. This composed the wooden axle attached the thick, disc-shaped wheels at either side. At first, the wheels and axle were one and the same and had to turn together at the exact same speed That was until the design was improved and the axle became fixed allowing the wheels to rotate independently. The design formed the basis of the early wheeled carts, which were pulled by horses or other large animals. Evidence of such carts has been discovered around the world, in Europe and the Middle East, India, and China. It's impossible to be sure how far back these date. They could be older than we'll ever know. clay wheels have been found in Eastern Europe and are thought to predate the 5th millennium BCE. The wheels might have been attached to a toy vehicle, like those found in Germany, dated to around the mid-4th millennium. Mesopotamian pictographs from around the same time show wheeled wagons on clay tablets. These toys and images in clay would suggest that wheeled vehicles were already familiar to the people who created them. But without more evidence, we can't be certain of anything, just as we can't know who first invented the wheel. What's clear is that humankind was in need of the wheel, even more so as a result of the Neolithic Revolution. As settlements grew in size and population, population, people had the need to travel greater distances. And as agricultural techniques allowed for the growing of more storable food, those large quantities of food had to be transported. People had to haul stone blocks to building sites across the city and transport produce to sell at markets. And as they sought to trade with other villages and cities, the need for transport grew more essential. It's therefore not implausible that the wheel was invented in different places, by different people, around the same time. That a number of communities had the same idea independently, much like inventors occasionally do today. Equally, it could be that some traveling merchant brought home an idea that they'd seen elsewhere, or that one tribe or kingdom conquering another gained the wheel's design as one of the spoils of war. Either way, making wheels was only possible alongside the development of metal tools. They had to be shaped into circular discs and have a hole cut in the middle for the axle to connect. This required the kind of precision that only metal tools were able to provide. That's why they weren't widespread until the so-called Copper Age, ending around 3300 BCE. The oldest wooden wheel recovered to date is called the Ljubljana Marshes Wheel, found in Slovenia. Radiocarbon dating puts it at over 5,000 years old, meaning that it was made during the Copper Age. The wheel is fairly large, with a diameter of 70 cm or 28 inches, and is made from the wood of a local ash tree. The axle is longer, at 120 cm or 48 inches. It's rod-like in shape and made of oak. It slots into a square hole at the wheel's center, so the wheel and axle turn together. It's thought to have belonged to a two-wheeled pushcart, of which many later models have been found throughout the region. In early Bronze Age Europe, according to the experts, at least two types of wheel assemblies were in production. There were those like the Ljubljana Marsh's wheel, where the wheel and axle turned together. And in places like Hungary, there were examples having a fixed axle and wheels that rotated independently. By modern standards, these early wheels would have likely seemed cumbersome and difficult to use. The wood could be uneven, making for a bumpy ride. They wore away quickly on rough terrain and would have needed replacing often. Over the next millennia, people began to experiment with the design and see where they might make improvements. This led to the invention of the spoke wheel, a familiar sight in the 21st century. This has a number of rods or spokes radiating outwards from the center of the wheel. The earliest wooden-spoke wheels are dated to 2000 BCE and were discovered around the Ural Mountains in present-day Russia. There were contemporaneous examples from Anatolia, or modern-day Turkey as well. It's thought that these were later introduced to China, where spoked wheels were discovered in the province of Qinghai, they're thought to have been made between 2000 and 1500 BCE. The spoked wheel had many advantages over its counterpart. It required less wood, and so was lighter and less awkward. The idea was to use just enough wood to support the wheel's frame and the load being carried. With this new kind of wheel came a new kind of vehicle, a lighter mode of transport that could travel at higher speeds. The chariot was a cart with two large spoked wheels. It was pulled by horses that were harnessed at its front. The earliest known chariots date to the late second millennium BCE and were discovered in Russia, where the spoked wheels were found. thought the design spread from here across Eurasia to groups and societies that also had domesticated horses. At first, they were used in the Caucasus region of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. Over the centuries, they spread across the Mediterranean, eventually being taken up by the ancient Greeks. By then, chariots were synonymous with war. They were a vital part of gaining victory in battle. Not only with the Greeks, but the Celts of Central Europe, who enhanced the design around the first millennium BCE. The Celts wanted to make their chariots more durable, so that the wheels wouldn't break when riding into battle. So, they attached an iron band around the wheel's outer rim, meaning that the metal absorbed the impact rather than the wood. This made the wheels less susceptible to damage. wheels with metal rims proved far more robust. And so, the design was taken up by many others, likely spread with the Celts as they migrated across Europe. They settled in places, including Britain, where the oldest spoked wheel is from East Anglia, England. Dated between 1100 and 800 BCE, it was excavated near the remains of a horse-drawn cart. This seems to be what spoked wheels were used for, at least outside of chariots made for battle. Both in Celtic Britain and places far beyond, they were generally attached to vehicles that were pulled by animals. These might be horses, donkeys or oxen, or even camels further afield. It depended on what animals were local to the region and whether they were robust enough to carry weight and be domesticated by humans. In places like the Americas, where there was a lack of suitable animals, such vehicles wouldn't come until much later. Those breeds had become extinct and llamas weren't strong enough, and the American bison proved nearly impossible to tame. Not that wheels were entirely unfamiliar in these places. A number of wheeled toys, including a charming one of a dog on a wheeled cart, have been found in Mexico. These date as far back as 1500 BCE. But there's no evidence of wheeled vehicles until 3000 years later, after the arrival of Europeans on the continent. These three millennia proved fairly uneventful, at least in terms of advancements in transportation. The wheel's overall design had continued to evolve, though, along with the purposes for which it was used. Aboriginals in Australia used wheel-like discs, rolling them along the ground for target practice with spears. And by 400 BCE, the Nubians of Northern Africa were likely using water wheels pulled by oxen. There are two types of water wheels. Animal-powered wheels, where animals turn a wheel, and gears transfer the rotational energy to a second wheel to lift buckets of water to a higher location. And water wheels where the flow of a river or stream rotates a wheel The first mention of a water wheel was from 4000 BCE in the familiar region of Mesopotamia It had been used to power a mill and make grain into flour, something that would continue over the preceding millennia. Antipater of Thessalonica referenced the water wheel in a poem written in the first century CE. A Greek living in Rome, he applauded the machine for freeing countless women from the exhausting work of making flour. Over time, water wheels would be used in a variety of ways, to cleanse and pound fiber, so it could be made into cloth, to hammer iron into an array of shapes, or to grind wood into pulp, which was then used to make paper for writing. With such a range of practical applications, water wheels would remain in common use until the 20th century. It was only then that they began to seem outdated, once coal and steam power and electricity had been invented. Though there are still some working water wheels today. Reminders of the innovations of old. Coal, steam power, and electricity came about during the Industrial Revolution, an era of great change and technological advancements. It began in Britain in the mid-1700s and spread to Europe and America over the next century and a half. If we consider that the wheel story began with an agricultural revolution, when hunters and gatherers settled down to farm the land, then we might say that industrialization marked its second chapter as culture shifted once again towards mass production. workers were able to leave rural villages and travel by steam train to industrial cities. There, they remained working in factories where mechanized industry ran on wheels. New inventions like James Hargrave's Spinning Jenny completely revolutionized the textile industry. The machine included a wheel and eight spindles, allowing operators to spin many threads at once. They could quickly produce vast amounts of yarn, which weavers would then use to make fabric. For many people, in Britain and beyond, life looked very different by the mid-nineteenth century. Time travel, in particular, had opened up a world of possibility, job opportunities, holidays, trade and migration. And yet, this was only the beginning in terms of the wheels' role in transport. It wasn't until the tail end of the era that inventors began wondering if they might, literally reinvent the wheel. Few things had changed in the wheel's design for the better part of 3,000 years. Wooden spoked wheels rimmed with metal still made for an effective and and durable means of transport. Where the design fell down, however, was in its failure to absorb shock, especially on roads that were peppered with potholes. Inventors began to ponder how they might adapt the wheel's design so that passengers might enjoy a more comfortable ride. Robert William Thompson was the first to submit a patent for an inflatable tire in 1846. The 23-year-old from Scotland was running a railway consultancy business when he came up with the idea of cushioning the wheel. Thompson's pneumatic tire, which he called an aerial tire, included a hollow rubber belt with a strong leather casing bolted to the outside. The elasticated belt was inflated with air, which cushioned the wheel against the track or ground. Patents were granted for Thomson's aerial wheels, which were showcased in London's Regent's Park in 1847. They were attached to a handful of horse-drawn carriages and said to greatly reduce noise and improve comfort. They were durable, too. One carriage had traveled over a thousand miles without the new wheel showing wear and tear. And yet, Thompson's tires never went into production due to a lack of demand and the high costs of rubber. It would be another 41 years before they came onto the scene in any significant way, thanks to another man from Scotland named John Boyd Dunlop. A successful veterinarian living in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he often worked with rubber in his profession. Dunlop had witnessed his son's discomfort as the boy rode his tricycle around the area. He sought to remedy the problem with an inflated rubber tire and applied for a patent soon after. Robert William Thompson's patent was already in place, so Dunlop's really shouldn't have been granted. But indeed, it was in 1888, and Dunlop tires went into production. The difference in comfort was immediately noticeable. And soon, manufacturers around the world were making bicycles with these same pneumatic tires. In 1889, the Irish cyclist Willie Hume rode Dunlop tires to victory in various cycling races. By then, other advancements had also been made, namely the invention of the tension-spoked wheel. A series of patents were awarded to inventors during the course of the 19th century. This kind of wheel utilized thin wire spokes instead of the thick wooden or metal ones used previously. They connected the wheel's rim to its central hub and worked in the same way as flexible tension wire. Tension spoked wheels were themselves lightweight, but they could carry a lot of weight. They were strong and durable. They responded well to braking and acceleration of the bicycle, and the spokes could be professionally adjusted to change the tension where needed. At first, these wheels were used predominantly in bicycles, including the so-called penny farthing. These interestingly named handle-less bikes, even though they did actually have handlebars, were popular during the 1870s and 1880s. They had one large wheel at the front with a saddle above it and another smaller wheel at the back. Later, they made their way onto a range of other vehicles, from children's tricycles and baby carriages or strollers to one of the earliest airplanes in 1909. The Bleriot 11 flew from France across the English Channel and set down its spoked wheels in Dover, England. They were even used in the world's first automobile, a motor tricycle with an engine at the back. It was patented in 1886 by the German engineer, Carl Benz. who showcased the vehicle that very same year. The motor car's three wheels were steel-spoked and had inflated rubber around the outside, while the car's front machinery comprised other wheels, which allowed the driver to steer. These spoked wheels wouldn't become commonplace in cars, though, for three decades. They were well suited to bicycles and other lightweight vehicles, but not the heavier cars of the early 20th century. The first car to be produced on an assembly line was Henry Ford's Model T in 1908. The American-made car required four strong wheels with its heavy chassis and two rows of seating. At first, it was made with wooden artillery wheels, the kind you might see on wagons, with straight wooden spokes. But beginning in 1926, Ford offered steel-welded spoke wheels with pneumatic rubber tires around the outside. It was with the invention of tangentially spoked wheels that things really began to change. These involved wires connected at an angle, allowing a torque to be transferred across the wheel. Spokes crossed over one another and made the wheel much stronger, strong enough to carry the weight of a car. This wouldn't have been possible without the work of many others who had paved the way. Some names, like Dunlop, are familiar today, still leading in the modern tire industry. Charles Goodyear, the American engineer who patented vulcanized rubber in 1844, is another. A self-taught chemist, he invented the chemical process which made rubber pliable, waterproof, and far longer-lasting. Before this, tires had been relatively fragile, especially on longer journeys when the rubber grew warm. But Goodyear's tires were less susceptible to bursting. They were far safer and more reliable The Michelin brothers Andre and Edward also played a part in the car tire development They'd been running a business selling farming tools in France when Edward saw a cyclist repairing a puncture. at the time were glued to the rim, which made dealing with punctures an arduous process. It took three hours to remove the tire and repair it before the glue was left to dry overnight. The brothers thought that there must be a better way. Through trial and error, they were able to find it. In 1891, they patented removable bicycle tires, ones that didn't require gluing to the rim. Car tires still had to be repaired while attached, which was time-consuming, difficult, and dangerous on the roadside. the Rudge Whitworth Company came onto the scene. It was formed after a merger between two bicycle manufacturers in Britain. Charles Pugh and his son John realized that to repair a tire quickly, one needed to remove it. So, they patented their design for a detachable wire wheel. which was awarded to the company in 1907. These detachable lightweight wheels were solid and hard-wearing. Many had two rows of tangential angled spokes. They offered resistance to cornering, braking, and accelerating, resulting in a smoother ride. Of course, this was far from the last alteration made on the wheel's journey into the 21st century. There were changes to how they were attached to the chassis in order to make them safer and easier to use. And the wheel itself was made easier to mass-produce with the invention of pressed or stamped steel wheels. These types of wheels are still commonplace today, being that they're simple and cheap to manufacture. Central plates are made with one stamping of a machine and are welded to a strip of rolled steel around the outer rim. These came to replace wire-spoked wheels, which had all but disappeared on cars by the 1980s. Their main use today is on adventure motorbikes, being that they're resistant to rough terrain. Some modern cars have cast alloy wheels, with wire wheel designs molded to the front. Being aesthetically pleasing is one of aluminum's many advantages. It also conducts heat away from the brakes. Alloys grew popular from the late 1960s and other advancements came soon after. From fiberglass belts to woven carbon rims, to the tires of everyday vehicles and those on luxury sports cars. It's nearly impossible to imagine the modern world had the wheel not been invented. We wouldn't have cars, buses, or bicycles, trains, ships, airplanes, or spacecraft. How different the 21st century might look if we couldn't roam any further or faster than our feet could carry us. That's only considering the narrow realm of transport, for the wheel is vital to a great range of technologies. You might remember that we mentioned the flywheel earlier, the way it utilizes rotational energy to keep a potter's wheel spinning. It's also used in farmers' tractors and in the power hammers utilized by modern blacksmiths. Then there are the toothed wheels, known as cogs or gears, which mesh with other cogwheels to transmit motion. These have been around for nearly as long as the wheel, with mentions in ancient Chinese documents. The oldest known example is the Antikythera mechanism from ancient Greece. People in the past used cogs to raise water and lift ship sails and to erect buildings, like the famed Library of Alexandria. The oldest found in Europe were in an ancient Greek orrery, the world's oldest analog computer, to calculate astronomical positions. Today, they're fundamental to cars and bicycles, as well as power drills, can openers, and elevators. Perhaps most notably, they're used in clocks and watches, meaning that without the cogwheel, wheel, we would struggle to measure time. When it comes to inventions that rely on the wheel, the list is truly never-ending. From the CDs or vinyl records that allow us to enjoy music, to the vacuum cleaner we use to hoover dirt from our carpets. From the fan that cools us down in the heat of summer to the Ferris wheel we might ride at a theme park or fun fair. Some cultures and religions have adopted the wheel as a symbol, a sign of repetition and life's endless cycle. The Buddhist wheel of life represents the cycle of existence, birth, life, death, and rebirth. There's also the Dharma chakra, which shows the steps to enlightenment, including ethics, wisdom, action, and meditation. It's often depicted as the wheel of a chariot, with eight spokes to designate the Buddha's noble path. It's hard to imagine a more fitting image than something so integral to humankind's evolution. creeds and cultures, past to present, the wheel is a symbol of human progress. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. you