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anarchysquid t1_j1i8bga wrote

Reply to comment by Type31971 in Simple/Short/Silly History Questions Saturday! by AutoModerator

There's two* main areas in the Americas that had dense urban cultures, Mesoamerica and Peru. Both areas are generally mountainous, with sharp changes in elevation, where wheels wouldn't be bery useful. In addition, Mesoamerica didn't have any large domesticated animals to pull carts, and Peru had llamas, which are fairly dainty and weak. Between the lack of draft animals and the steep terrain, there just wasn't a good use for the wheel.

*there was also the Mississppians, but we don't know a lot about their culture. One can imagine the lack of draft animals was an issue, even if the terrain was flatter.

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LateInTheAfternoon t1_j1iaiv6 wrote

>Both areas are generally mountainous

No, they're not. A lot of lowlands, plains and broad valleys and many cities were built by the coasts (especially far away from any mountains in the case of Peru).

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anarchysquid t1_j1idu9e wrote

So here is a map of the valley of Mexico, before Lake Texcoco was drained. As you can see, there are flat areas, especially along the lakeshore, but the valley is lined with hills and there are even hills between major population centers. This isn't to say there are no flat areas, but elevation is a major concern for any significant travel distance.

Here is a map of the Incan Empire. Notice the terrain between major population centers like Cuzco and La Paz or Lima? Again, there are places where a wheeled cart would have helped, but overall the land is quite mountainous.

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LateInTheAfternoon t1_j1iftaz wrote

I urge you to look on the rest of the maps while you're at it. Take a gander were most pre-Incan cities were located as well. You'll soon find why "generally" was a poorly chosen word which no cherrypicked examples will change.

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Type31971 t1_j1ic67r wrote

Draft animals aren’t a necessity to make the wheel useful for transportation. If anything it’d make weaker animals more useful, and wheeled carts being drawn by humans have existed in Europe and Asia for centuries, if not millennia.

The need for tight turning ability in cities would have made the wheel a welcome addition in mesomerica, and the reduced workload going up inclines with wheels is superior to non-wheeled.

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anarchysquid t1_j1ifi5c wrote

Whats your alternative theory?

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Type31971 t1_j1ilibh wrote

The Americas were hit and miss. They pioneered the zero in mathematics while large swaths were no farther advanced than the Stone Age when Europeans showed up on their doorstep. Saying they lacked inventiveness is a stretch, but at the same time having access to the wheel but not taking this basic technology to its logical conclusion is maddening

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TheBattler t1_j1jorq0 wrote

>wheeled carts being drawn by humans have existed in Europe and Asia for centuries, if not millennia.

Okay but that doesn't matter when our earliest archaeological evidence for carts is often tied to cattle; the Brononice pot abstractly depicts a wagon and was found alongside the remains of an auroch. Tripolye culture toy bull is literally a bull on wheels. Evidence for carts and wagons appear in present-day Ukraine just after the introduction of cattle.

It's a boring answer but for whatever reason, humans didn't think they needed a cart until they had some other poor animal to drag it around.

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Type31971 t1_j1jxt69 wrote

Art of cattle pulling a cart doesn’t mean human-pulled carts weren’t developed at the same time or earlier. On top of that there’s no evidence that mesoamerican cultures stopped developing wheeled carts because of an absence of large domesticated draft animals. The Maya didn’t shrug their shoulders and say “This could be awesome, if only… oh well”

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TheBattler t1_j1k3y8f wrote

Yes, everybody on this sub knows the absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence...but this is to our best current knowledge.

>On top of that there’s no evidence that mesoamerican cultures stopped developing wheeled carts because of an absence of large domesticated draft animals.

If that's your standard for why they didn't develop wheeled carts, you'll basically never have a satisfactory answer. It's next to impossible to prove a negative using archaeology.

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Type31971 t1_j1k8tx2 wrote

There is never gonna be a satisfactory answer. As I said before, large swaths of the Americas were still Stone Age societies when Europeans made contact… You’d think all of continental humanity would have advanced beyond that point

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