The first wheel was allegedly invented in the Carpathians 6,000 years ago: archaeologists have come to an impressive conclusion

Scientists believe that the first wheel was invented by copper miners in the Carpathian Mountains about 6,000 years ago. Scientists have come to this impressive conclusion based on modeling that uses structural mechanics.

Archaeological evidence of wheels and wheeled vehicles abounds from the Copper Age (roughly 5000-3000 BC) throughout Europe, Asia and North Africa, including battle scenes painted on walls, miniature wheels, children's toys, burials in carts and even early textual references to the technology. However, new evidence suggests that Eastern European mountain diggers may have been the driving force behind three major innovations in wheel technology as early as 3900 BC, LiveScience writes.

There are three main theories about the origin of the wheel, scientists say. According to the first one, this invention appeared in Mesopotamia around 4000 BC, and then spread to Europe.

Another theory suggests that the wheel was created off the Pontic coast of northern Turkey around 3800 BC. However, a third major theory claims that the wheel was invented in the Carpathian Mountains between 4000 and 3500 BC, spread in different directions from there.

This third theory was put forward in 2016 by historian Richard Bulliet, professor emeritus at Columbia University and co-author of the new study. It is based on the idea that around 4000 BC, copper ore became more difficult to extract because miners had to go deep into the mines and pull heavy containers of minerals out.

It was at this time that models of late Copper Age carts were found in the Carpathian region. They have a rectangular shape with trapezoidal sides - similar to modern mining wagons, Bulliet wrote in The Wheel: Inventions and Reinventions (Columbia University Press, 2016).

In a new study, Richard Bulliet and co-authors Kai James, an aerospace engineer at Georgia Tech, and Lee Alacoque, an engineer formerly at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, have detailed their model of how the wheel likely evolved.

Starting with their knowledge of ancient wheel systems based on archaeological evidence, the team of scientists used computational mechanics and design science to investigate how humans might have turned a set of simple rollers into a wheel-and-axle system.

In their research, the scientists suggested that three innovations were required for the evolution of the wheel. Given the need to move a heavy basket or box, people likely used rollers placed along a track, moving the rear rollers forward if necessary.

The first innovation, the grooved rollers, allowed the box to rest on the wheels and move back and forth without people walking around it to replace these rollers. This may have allowed people to push a wider cart down the mine.

The second innovation was a wheelset or wheels attached to the axle, which could give the cart more clearance to get through the rocks and other debris in the mine. And the third innovation, where the wheels move independently of the axle, probably came about 500 years after the wheelset and added maneuverability to the design, the researchers said.

"The environment where the original wheel developers were operating contained certain unique features that encouraged a shift toward roller-based transport," said Kai James.

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