For a long time it was thought that the wheel was an invention originating in Mesopotamia around 4500 BC as a lathe wheel used by potters, but it was soon used for the construction of chariots as a means of transportation. However, in recent decades the general consensus was that its origin occurred, simultaneously, in different places. But the date was “immovable.” Until now.
A collection of drilled pebbles from an archaeological site in Israel turns out to be spindle spirals, representing a key milestone in the development of rotation tools, including the wheel. That is the conclusion of a study published in Plos One and led by Talia Yashuv and Leore Grosman of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.
Donut-shaped objects connected to a bar, forming a wheel and axle, are a key technological development and are commonly associated with Bronze Age chariots. Spindle spirals, round and heavy objects what iston Attached to a spindle lever, they form a device similar to the wheel and axle to help the spindle rotate moretoMrtoI ask ymtos time, allowing it to collect wool fibers and spin them into yarn.
The stones studied by Yashuv’s team in the new paper, recovered from the Nahal-Ein Gev II excavation site in northern Israel, were They date back approximately 12,000 years, during the major transition to an agricultural lifestyle and the Neolithic period, long before the chariot wheels of the Bronze Age.
Introducing an innovative method for studying drilled objects, based on 3-D digital models of the stones and their negative holes, Yashuv’s team describes more than a hundred pebbles, mostly sandstone, that They have a circular shape perforated by a central hole. Due to this structure and composition, the study concludes that the stones were probably used as spindle spirals, a hypothesis also supported by tests carried out with these stones and which allowed flax strands to be successfully spun.
This collection of spindle spirals would represent a very early example of humans using rotation with a wheel-shaped tool and could have paved the way for later rotation technologies, such as the potter’s wheel and the chariot wheel, which were vital to the development of early civilizations.
“The most important aspect of the study – concludes Yashuv – is how modern technology allows us to delve deeper into touching the footprints of the prehistoric craftsmanlearn something new about them and their innovation, and at the same time, about our modern technology and how we are linked.”