Perforated pebbles discovered in Israel may roll back the time of the wheel invention by thousands of years, according to a study in PLOS ONE.
Archeologists had traced the origins of the wheel to around 3500 B.C. in Mesopotamia, where people used wheels to make pottery. About 300 years later, evidence of wheels used as transportation emerged. Many digs at burial sites dating back 4,000 years to 5,000 years unearthed wheeled carts. Archeologists have also discovered drawings and writings showing the wheel used as transportation for both people and products, dated a bit later.
Now, a collection of perforated pebbles found in the Nahal-Ein Gev II dig site in northern Israel, pushes the essential invention’s founding to about 12,000 years ago — essentially doubling the time of the wheel’s existence. But these small stone donut-shaped objects were almost certainly not used for transportation.
