Had the Native Americans ( north and south ) discovered the wheel before the Europeans arrived?

Answer 1

Not for transport.
These indigenous civilizations are credited with many inventions in: building pyramid-temples, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, writing, highly accurate calendars, fine arts, intensive agriculture, engineering, an abacus calculation, a complex theology, and the wheel. Without any draft animals the wheel was used only as a toy.

The oldest wheel found in archeological excavations was discovered in what was Mesopotamia and is believed to be over fifty-five hundred years old. The wheel was used extensively in the Greek and Roman civilizations .

Answer 2

Wait, Native Americans didn't have cities in North America? You mean that European colonists built all those cities and made them look like they were thounsands of years old? Those tricky Europeans!

The fact is that while there were quite a few differences between European and Native American technologies at the time of contact, the people of the Americas had certainly grasped the concept of the wheel. Some people had need of it, and some didn't.

North American Indians were also not living a "stone age" existence, at that time. The technology that they were using, while primarily lithic in nature, far surpassed anything made in the so-called stone age. Archaeologists today simply do not compare Native American technology with paleolithic Europe technology. Way too different.

Answer 3

They didn't need the wheel. And on a side note, because of the Native American beleifs there weren't many wars between tribes, the land was taken care of, they were not greedy, only killed animals when neccesary and used all the parts, and when they acquired a lot of possessions they would donate everything they had to those that needed more. In my opinion, they were the society that came closest to having a Utopia.

Answer 4

Steve from Canada was right: the aztecs had wheeled childrens toys, but that was it. The Inca, on the other hand, had domesticated llamas, and used the wheel at times. The problem there was the terrain, so it wasn't widely used. So although pretty much all the population knew about the wheel, it wasn't terribly helpful.

Answer 5

I hate to burst your bubble, but the American Indians, especially those in the north, led a stone-age existence when the first Europeans arrived here.

They had no written language, rode no animal, used no animal to replace human labor, did not get milk from animals, and -- with the exception of the Aztecs of Mexico, the Mayas of Mexico and Guatamala, and the Incas of Peru -- built no cities.

While most Indians were hunters and/or gatherers, the most advanced of them -- north or south -- were horticulturalists. A people can't advance to argiculturalists until they invent the plow, as Europeans had done about 8,000 years ago.

Changing history to make it "politically correct" is about as edifying as teaching kids that George Washington never told a lie or that he wore wooden false teeth. (GW lied to his troops all the time to keep them moving, and he did wear false teeth, but they were made from other human teeth.)

Answer 6

The Aztecs used wheels on children's toys, but because native Americans had no large domesticated animals they had no real use for wheels for transportation (they could have invented wheelbarrows like the Chinese, I suppose, but they never did).

Answer 7

NO not used for transportation purposes. however, they had what was called " The Medicine Wheel " which THE CREATOR ( THE GREAT SPIRIT ) gave the people to use for Religious and Ceremonial Purposes.

Answer 8

those savages had nothing before those nobel Europeans came to the rich land of America...NOT!!!we gave them everything they have, even diseases, a new place to live because we wanted to live where they did. We gave them jobs, if you call slavery a job.

Answer 9

Wheel was discovered by sumerians of babylon in 3500 BC.

Answer 10

Their downfall was small pox. Europeans had it. They didn't. It nearly wiped the Native population out.