The economics of… wheels

How long have wheels been around? / 59

A quick answer today to a question that came to my mind as I stood on a platform at the station in Würzburg, Bavaria, this weekend, staring at a piece of technology of a new train (see photo below; it is a Siemens train run by Go Ahead; more here) without having a clue what this technology is good for, and asking myself, how long has means of transport on wheels existed??

The answer is: at least for more than 6000 years. 

How do we know? Because of the Bronocice pot (see picture below). It is a ceramic vase incised with one of the earliest known depictions of what may be a wheeled vehicle.

The pot was discovered in Poland near Kraków in the 1970s and is dated to the mid-fourth millennium BCE. 

The picture on the pot depicts key elements of human environment. The most important component of the decoration are five rudimentary representations of what seems to be a wagon. They represent a vehicle with a shaft for a draught animal and four wheels. The lines connecting them probably represent axles. The circle in the middle possibly symbolises a container for harvest. Other images on the pot include a tree, a river and what may be fields intersected by roads/ditches or the layout of a village.

The wagons were presumably drawn by aurochs whose remains were found with the pot.

A few thousand years later, standing on a platform, we push a button, doors open, we step into a warm room, settle into a padded chair, and float to another city.

Isn't it incredible what technical progress has enabled us to do? What a crazy, safe and comfortable life we can live today!

Many inventions were necessary to lead such a comfortable travel life. The most important of all is the invention of the wheel. 

Wheels are so natural to us that we can hardly see the ingenuity of the invention.

In conjunction with axles, wheels allow heavy objects to be moved easily. 

The physical advantage of the wheel: low resistance. A wheeled vehicle just requires much less work to move than simply dragging the same weight. 

From the invention of the wheel to today's bullet train ride, how many people have contributed to this progress – with countless incremental improvements? 

It’s their pursuit of progress that lets us live a life in prosperity today. Does this create an obligation for us? To improve life for the upcoming generations? I guess so. At least we should appreciate the efforts of our ancestors, shouldn’t we?

Rolling, 

Johannes 

PS: If you want to travel by train to see the Bronocice pot, it's on display here.