The Evolution and Functionality of the Wheel

Most authorities regard the wheel as one of the oldest and most important inventions originating in ancient Mesopotamia in the 5th millennium BC in the function of the potters wheel. The wheel reached Europe and Western Asia in the 4th millennium BC, and the Indus Valley by the 3rd millennium BC.

Although they did not develop the wheel proper, the Olmec and other western hemisphere cultures seem to have approached the idea, as wheel-like worked stones have been found on objects identified as children’s toys dating to about 1500BC.

Looking back, Paleoanthropologists date the emergence of anatomically modern humans to 150,000 years ago, 143,000 of those years were “wheel-less”. That people with capacities fully equal to our own walked the earth for so long before conceiving the wheel may be initially surprising, but the wheel is not as simple a device as it may seem. Making a balancing wheel requires a skilled wheelwright.

Wide usage of the wheel was delayed because smooth roads were needed for wheels to be effective. Carrying goods on one’s back would have been the preferred method of transportation over surfaces that contained many obstacles. The lack of developed roads in less developed areas prevented wide adoption of the wheel until well into the 20th century.

The spoked wheel was invented more recently, and allowed the construction of lighter and swifter vehicles. The earliest known examples are in the context of the Andronovo culture, dating to 2000BC. Shortly later, horse cultures of the Caucasus region used horse-drawn spoked-wheel war chariots for the greater part of three centuries. They moved deep into the Greek peninsula where they joined with existing Mediterranean people to give rise, eventually, to classical Greece after the breaking of Minoan dominance and consolidations led by pre-classical Sparta and Athens. Celtic chariots introduced an iron rim around the wheel in the 1st millennium BC. The spoked wheel had been in continuous use without major modification until in the 1870’s, when wire wheels and pneumatic tyres were invented.

The invention of the wheel has also been important for technology in general, important applications including the water wheel, the cogwheel, and the spinning wheel. More modern descendants of the wheel include the propeller, the flywheel, and the roller. HAWA JUNIOR 40-120GP Sliding Systems can operate on what may seem to be a simple roller, but what happen to be some very sophisticated rollers in their own right. They weigh only 60g and are 54mm in diameter and 31.5mm wide. They are made from polyoximethylene, a white plastic characterised by very high stability, rigidity, abrasion resistance and temperature resistance. HAWA JUNIOR 40-120GP slides doors and smoothly and with ease. A true testament to functionality, we have definitely come a long way from the Neolithic wheel to the 21st century HAWA Junior 40-120GP rollers.