Energy and Transport

Humans were also learning how to use other forms of energy.The sailboat is the oldest known example of wind power use.An Egyptian pot from 3200 B.C.E. shows the earliest picture of a ship sailing. Egyptians probably used “the power of the Nile” annual floods to irrigate their land in prehistoric times. Over time, they learned to control a lot of it by making irrigation channels and “catch” basins.The Sumerians, the first people of Mesopotamia, learned to use the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in a similar manner.However, a different invention was necessary in order to make extensive use of wind, water, and even human power.Archaeologists believe that the wheel was invented around 4000 B.C.E.

The wheel was probably also independently invented in Mesopotamia, which is now Iraq.The oldest artifacts with drawings depicting wheeled carts date from approximately 3000 B.C.E., with the majority of experts putting the event closer to 4000 B.C.E.However, prior to the creation of these drawings, the wheel may have been in use for millennia.Wheels were also used to make pottery, according to evidence from the same time period.

It is important to keep in mind that the very first potter’s wheel was probably not a wheel at all but rather an irregularly shaped slab of flat wood with a small hollow or pierced area near the center that was mounted on a peg that was driven into the ground.The potter or his assistant would have repeatedly tugged on it to rotate it.)All the more as of late, the most seasoned known wooden wheel on the planet was tracked down in the Ljubljana swamps of Slovenia.[19]