this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2025
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[–] Philharmonic3@lemmy.world 75 points 3 days ago (8 children)

Why is the first wheel always shown as stone? Surely a log would have lent itself to the discovery of rolling much more readily

[–] bob_lemon@feddit.org 58 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Its called the stone age, not the log age, duh.

[–] GladiusB@lemmy.world 9 points 3 days ago

Not when I'm done with it

[–] ronl2k@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

According to Google, what we call The Stone Age also included the use of wood products. They were often used together.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Lies.

Next thing you will try to convince us we were still using copper in the iron age.

[–] ronl2k@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Everything invented before the copper age is considered to be part of the stone age.

  • Stone age: ends 5000 BCE
  • Copper age: 3500 - 2300 BCE
  • Bronze age: (tin+copper alloy): begins 3300 BCE
  • Iron age: begins 1200 BCE
[–] deltatangothree@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (4 children)

I would guess logs don't lend themselves to the historical/fossil whatever record as well as stone does. The oldest wheels we've found are stone because any potential log ones deteriorated, and this was all before written records.

[–] marcos@lemmy.world 17 points 2 days ago

That entire idea is so absurd I had to check.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel

Looks like the first transportation-related evidence of wheel we have was made of clay (probably because it was a toy). The first transportation-related actual wheel that we found was made of wood. The first wheel-shaped object we found wasn't used for transportation and was made of wood.

Stone is just a really bad material for making wheels. But I wrongly expected to see some metal ones on the list.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 days ago

Fantastic example of survivorship bias.

The logs have since been rotated, got it.

[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago

Imagin if logs were actually perfect material for designing that one shape that produces infinite energy, food, and research.

[–] BigBenis@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Do you see any trees in that drawing? It seems cavemen existed exclusively in barren volcanic wastelands.

[–] betanumerus@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Haha yes, cavemen only lived in caves far away from forests of course.

Or maybe forests are just too complicated to draw for a cartoon.

[–] pipe01@programming.dev 5 points 2 days ago

Well duh, they're cavemen not forestmen

[–] Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 days ago

Obviously the dinosaurs were eating all the trees

[–] ronl2k@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Wheels were useless anyway until the invention of the axle, around 3500 BCE.

[–] Madison420@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Mill stones are paleolithic so like 7000 years prior to the wheel and the good ones are just wheels with intentionally angled faces.

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

What good's an axle without...the grabby thing that holds the axle or whatever it connects to?

[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

Not to mention the lack of internal combustion engines to power the whole thing.

[–] silasmariner@programming.dev 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Because the oldest reference disks we have are millstones? Idk. They always look like millstones to me

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Might be more to do with stone lasting far longer than wood when it comes to decay.

[–] silasmariner@programming.dev 2 points 2 days ago

You'd be surprised how long wood can last, but yeah stone certainly doesn't need such specific circumstances

[–] Bad@jlai.lu 7 points 3 days ago
[–] betanumerus@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

When it was on TV, the Flintstones cartoon made it to everyone's mind.

Rolling logs is something even beavers have probably been rediscovering over the eras.

[–] UncleMagpie@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago

The Flintstones fascinated me when I was a kid because everything had already been invented but it was just made out of rocks and wood instead of metal and plastic. So for example they had a stone dishwasher appliance powered by a bird or something.

[–] crimsonpoodle@pawb.social 3 points 2 days ago

Might have been grinding wheels for wheat; don’t have to be replaced as often and if in a stone track don’t have to worry as much about breakage. But that’s just a theory…. A history theory… or at least a history conjecture