date of wheeled vehicles

[X99Lynx at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/20/00 9:46:04 PM, Robert Drews wrote:

<<It appears now that the wheeled vehicle was invented ca. 3500 BC, and
almost immediately established itself over a huge area, from Uruk to
Jutland.  Good article by Jan Bakker, Janusz Kruk et al., "The Earliest
Evidence of Wheeled Vehicles in Europe and the Near East," in the last
fascicle of Antiquity (Antiquity 73 [1999], pp. 778-790).>>

I haven't read the article, but I have the abstract.

What surprises me is that these authors have previously argued that the
evidence points to European origins for the wheel.  This is from 1998 SAA
Symposium abtract, which is reproduced in several places on the web:

"The earliest evidence of wheeled transport in Europe and the Near East.
 J. A. Bakker, J. Kruk,A. E. Lanting, S. Milisauskas
A wheeled model from the Late Uruk site Jabel Aruda (Syria), 4500-4400 bp
(GrN, uncalibrated) and earlier wagon pictographs of Uruk IV are the earliest
proof of wheeled vehicles in the Near East. A cart-rut below a TRB megalithic
tomb at Flintbek (Germany) has been dated 4800-4700 bp. A TRB pot with wagon
motifs from Bronocice (Poland) is dated 4725 bp (GrN), but seven C-14 dates
(DIC) of the same Bronocice III phase yield 4610-4440 BP."

"The GrN dates and the Flintbek age seem to suggest that wheeled vehicles
were invented in Europe together with the ard, ox-team and yoke, not in the
Near East."

The Antiquities abstract pulls back a bit on the European origin claims made
2 years earlier:
"Results of excavations and 14C determinations from Poland, Germany,
Iraq, Syria and Turkey suggest that the appearance of wheeled vehicles
was contemporary in Europe and the Near East. (citing: Uruk-Eanna, Uqair,
Bronocice III, Jebel Aruda, Arslantepe and Flintbek)"

An important thing about the Flintbek find - for this discussion- is that it
occures not in connection with so-called kurgan graves but rather in an
earlier megalithic context. (1994a Die Ausgrabungen chronisch gefährdeter
Hügelgräber der Stein- und Bronzezeit in Flintbek, Kreis
Rendsburg-Eckernförde: Ein Vorbericht. Offa, 49/50, 1992/93, Wachholtz,
Neumünster, Schleswig-Holstein, 1994:15-31.)

"A long barrow in Flintbek in the center of Schleswig-Holstein supplied
information on the use of a two-wheeled cart (Zich 1992). During excavation
work, traces of a cart were exposed which had been conserved under a long
barrow and led to a dolmen (Fig. 9). It is possible that the barrow had been
used to transport stones or earth for the construction of a dolmen chamber.
The weight of the stones or of earth is probably responsible for the deep
tracks....  It is thought that a single axle vehicle was moved back and forth
as clay from the pit for the chamber construction was removed."

"The tomb was built during the Funnel Beaker Culture's Early Neolithic II
phase. Consequently, the tracks (which were sealed by the mound that covered
the chamber) date sometime between 3600 - 3400 cal BC."

Bakker, Kruk, et al also don't seem to mention a find at Federsee also in
Germany: evidence of plank roads across moorland preserving corduroy cart
tracks.  The settlement and plank roads are a good deal earlier, carbon dated
all the way to 4400BC.  The Federsee Museum is calling them the oldest
evidence of wheeled carts in Europe.

The suggestion has been made that this and other evidence (e.g.,Schacht 1995)
points to the wide roads that always adjoin megalithic tombs as being for the
cart rather than only foot or hoof use, and even that conservation of wood
for the such things as carts may have help cause the shift from thick timber
to megalith construction. (M. Baldia 1998) And of course there is little
question that some kind of rotational devices had to be used to build the
megaliths and that the Flintbek find emphasizes the secondary nature that
evidence must take.

Actual disk wheels found in Europe are older than any direct evidence of
wheeled transport in the Near East. (In fact I believe Piggott gives 3625BC
as a date for the earliest wagon burial!)  One reason for this may be that
the practice of wagon burials artificially preserve the wheels that would
have otherwise been recycled.  The absence of wheel finds in the Near East -
despite unequivocal secondary evidence - argues in favor of this viewpoint.

Bakker/Kruk's apparent new diffusion theory - that wheeled transport quickly
spread from Jutland to Uruk - making it practically contemporaeneous - fits
in with Sherrat's idea of a steady pipeline between the Near East and
northern Europe along the old Bandkermik highway.

Another conjecture would be that if the wheel-for-transport was that
dispersed at 3500BC, it might have been "invented" a good deal earlier and
followed the usual diffusion time table - in the case of copper metallurgy,
about 1000 years.

And all this may not fit in with the idea that metal made the wheel possible:
("Metal tools revolutionized crafts. For example, metal saws could cut wooden
planks into circular shapes, allowing such inventions as the wheel." Littauer
and Crauwel 1979).

Regards,
Steve Long