Wheels.

From: John Croft

the Sumerians (who invented writing, historical record keeping, temple building, the wheel, irrigation etc etc)

The wheel? The wheel is nowhere attested until after 4000 BCE. After 4000 BCE it seems to be everywhere. The Brononice pot is apparently the earliest representation ***ANYWHERE*** of a wheeled vehicle.

 

Is the wheel a European invention? Maybe. An Indo-European invention? Who knows. Hoo-Whee; the idea that we IE-speakers invented the wheel is considerably more beguiling than the Standard Model assumption that we domesticated the horse.

 

I don't think Sumer/Ubiad invented the wheel. Their earliest tombs have toys, rather like the pre-Columbian Incas had wheeled toys. The Americas did not have wheeled vehicles until the advent of the Spanish.

 

Mark.