Another great video. I'm glad you pointed out the Meso-Americans and how they invented wheels but didn't use them for other than toys. I think in modern culture we are so reliant on wheels with automobiles and such we can't really think how a civilization could function without it.
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Great work on a really good topic! I'd also point out that living in the society that we do, we are biased in thinking that the wheel is "obvious". If we didn't live in a world with cars, maintained roads, shopping carts and bicycles, I doubt we'd see the wheel the way that we do.
Hey, love your videos!! Conversely, if any of us were thrown back in time and had to function in ancient societies, they would call us the idiots for not thinking of the tools that were obvious to them but are now obsolete and near-forgotten in our globalized and hyper-industrialized environment. This, and your own videos on subjects like native copper have helped me to more fully appreciate how cultures and people thrive by specializing to their resources and environments
When mentioning the Potters Wheel, it seems to be one of several things that were developed independently in West Africa. Others being iron and agriculture. What I find extremly interesting about West Africa is that it seems that the civilization there may have developed more or less completely independent rather than being something that spread from somewhere else?
I have always wager that the niger bend culture should be considered its own cradle of civilization since the niger River provided a source for agricultural farming that's would have eventually evolved to the dar tichitt civilization, nok, and djnee civilization. Plus those 3 culture are contemporary to civilization like ancient China, and mesoamerica. I would also include the Mississippian culture should included as a new cradle of civilization as well.
@@thatguy464 I think the Mississippi civilization possibly spread from Mesoamerica. With the Niger River though, it is distinct from other civilization, possible an outlier like the Indus Civilization and we have a large very undeveloped zone between it and the other civilizations of the time, suggest that it did not spread there from somewhere else.
@@steinarvilnes3954 pretty sure the Mississippian culture develop independently from mesoamerica cultures, what they have in common is maze production. And I agree that the early niger bend culture are an outlier much like the indus valley civilization, but even the indus valley civilization is still a cradle of civilization even modern Indian barely have anything to do with. Think as the nok culture similar to the olmacs, a parent civilization to other mesoamerica culture like the maya, zaptecs, and aztec that lay down the blue print.
I noticed this too I think it is because west Africa is a geographically distinct region roughly the same size as Europe, boarded by a desert to the north, mountains to the east, and oceans to the south a west. The modern day populations of the region migrated there a few thousand years ago and formed trading cities that eventually became empires with their own politics institutions and cultures and law, but all within this wider system that developed in this distinct region. Very similar to the states in Europe in that sense. One example of this is (but not the only) Dar Tichit - Walata - ancient Ghana empire - Mali empire, Songhai empire then all the successor states that formed in their wake. The hegemon of this region was traditionally the sahellian empires of Ghana-Mali-Songhai and after Mali-Songhai declined to led to a ‘dark age’ in the region where lots of smaller empires rose up to try to claim the prestige, institutions and trade positions of the hegimons of the region. This led to lots of smaller wars, not too dissimilar to Europe after the fall of Rome or China after its various dynastic collapses. More war = more P.O.W, & more P.O.W = more slaves. This time period coincides with the colonisation of the americas by the Europeans and the advent of the the trans Atlantic slave trade. Eventually the region began to stabilise in the early 1800s with new empires becoming more established (Ashanti, Dahomey, Hausa land-Sokoto etc) but the partition of Africa by the Europeans happened and set things back. But I agree that west Africa is its own distinct civilisation and that the Niger bend is a cradle of civ much like the Indus, yellow valley, Mesopotamia etc.
@@second2none914 But Ghana empire is a bit "late", about 800 AD. What is very interesting in my opinion, is that cities seems have existed for a long time before that. I have seen times everywhere from 1200BC to 200BC for the birth of the Niger River Valley civilization. So what is interesting is how the people of West Africa managed to have cities and complex trade networks for many centuries, seemingly without centralized government.
Besides Egypt using the horse and chariot so to did the Nubians. The Garamantes of North Africa who were called Ethiopians by many sources also used the horse and chariot.
Ah yes the whole: "Africans didn't invent this easy to develop thing" My guy most humans didn't invent said thing! It's really important that videos like this remind people that technology develops based on available material and necessity created by the environment people live in and Africans "not inventing the wheel" really shouldn't be used to degrade them.
@@kinglewisjtl24 yes. The first part of my comment was pointing out the stupidity of people who make arguments like that. The second part of my comment was me agreeing with the points made in the video
Fun fact. The wheel was almost never used in Japan until after the 19th century. Traffic of materials, even in large amounts, was done on human backs and rarely by horse or cart. Even wheelbarrows were virtually unheard of in Japan. Source: "The Use of the Wheel in Japan" by Alan Macfarlane.
That might have to do with the tokugawa government ban on wheeled vehicles because they were paranoid someone would overthrow them, not because they didn't knew the existence of the wheel or didn't knew how to use it. In fact when the ban on wheeled vehicles was lifted Japan developed it's own rickshaw transport system independently from the ones in the west.
@@mitonaarea5856 The Tokugawa era spans from the 17th-19th centuries. What about the rest of the time before that? Japan surely knew of the wheel before, but didn't or couldn't make widespread use of it. And there's nothing wrong with that. A similar thing could be said about Africa. It didn't have the wheel because the environment was not conducive to its use or development, but after modernization Africans decided the wheel was useful and even developed their own makeshift vehicles out of scrap metal and wood.
@@bluebird5173 Actually the wheel was widely used especially during the heian era. It seems that when the emperors lost power the wheel lost favor to other types of transport.
I think wheel development in Africa, the Americas, and even southern Asia, just didn't have sufficient practical application. Aside from tsetse fly infestation, the tropical zone of sub-Saharan Africa would have been so thickly forested that wheel-accessible roads would perforce have been much harder to build and maintain. Even today much of the Amazon and Congo basins are more accessible by boat than by road. I'd love to know more about the potter's wheel, though.
Actually if you look up simple pulleys you’ll see they use a wheel. This is actually why African structures remained so small, there was no pulley systems to move giant objects.
@yousifboti well before the first dynasty actually. A lot of egypts pre dynasty art has the same humans with bug eyes as the summerians and god kings wrestling lions with braided beards like summers. The archeological record shows a massive leap from bone and stick with scratching to these and that kind of change is evidence of incoming pop groups.
In 1824 CE, the king of Lagos gifted a large-sized carriage to the emperor of Brazil. CITATION - Law, Robin (1980). "Wheeled transport in pre-colonial West Africa". Africa. 50 (3): 249-254.
I hate that the Eurasian way has become synonymous with civilization just because they’ve been successful with dominating everything in their path. In reality there’s more than one way to live and thrive. It just depends on what the people have that’s available to them and how they decide to use it. From what I can tell, the people in Eurasia were basically playing civilization on easy mode as they simply had more advantages that the land, geography and climate provided for them. It’s certainly much more nuanced than those who like to think that Eurasians are simply more intelligent.
@@ahmadsuleman9045was you there to confirm man was on the moon ? Funny enough I don’t recall of your people being involved in the NASA space team During the time
@@Pax-Islamica Most humans supposedly migrated from Africa. Those that stayed never developed. Plus that argument of geography and climate is BS if you take into consideration that early humans in Eurasia had to deal with severe cold temperatures due to the Ice age. In contrast Africa was warmer and still did not develop anything. As a matter of fact, the humans that migrated to Eurasia during this time thrived during the Ice age and developed quite well. So the so called "easy mode" was only done trough sheer intelligence and persistence It's taboo to say today, but in nature the stronger and more intelligent survive and saying that a race or culture are weaker is a sin in modern times. It's clear that those that stayed in Sub Saharan Africa were weaker mentally
It honestly funny how people didn't watch the video and start making up bs about it then then ignore other civilizations didn't invent the wheel etheir like the Aztecs or Mayans.
Clearly not otherwise this video wouldn't have been as successful as it is. Most people think that the wheel was invented like hundreds of thousands of years ago along with fire and spears. So if it's obvious to you then you're the exception.
Ah the wheel the Eurocentrics' main weapon to rebuttal African achievements whenever someone mentions the history of African state, Kingdom or empire south of the Sahara. Little do they know as highlighted here most cultures adopted it and didn't actually invent it out of the blue even the Egyptians got it from elsewhere. Also as explained the geography plays a major factor. Btw some scholars say it began North of Mesopatamia within the Eurasian Steppe region with the ancestors of the Indo Europeans who first domesticated horses. I'm not sure how true that is but, I know Mesopatamia is known as the place which has the first evidence of the wheel, from there as you noted it spread east into other regions like the Indus Valley.
Yeah it's crazy how simple-minded some people are "Africans never invented xxxxx." Europeans didn't invent the wheel, metallurgy, farming, or statebuilding. It was all brought to them by people elsewhere. There is nothing wrong with that but for some reason they have a problem with that being the case in Africa.
@@FromNothing Exactly that's how human societies work we learn from outside influence many times. This is exactly what I say. Europe was influenced by outside ideas and visa versa ofcourse. This doesn't take anything away from the history so why does it take away anything from the continent of Africa? Double standards some people have call them out on it they get defensive 😂.
@@odenoki9571 Yeah, I kinda agree. Rolly thing doesn't seem that complex tho it seems that it takes more than inventing a circular disk to actually have a functional wheel and if it isn't functional in doing anything, it probably wouldn't have become popular.
I think a good follow up would be livestock native to Africa. We never hear much about farming, ranching, or herding... which is an integral part of society when building city-states and city based empires.
Considering how many pics of europeans being carried by humans there are in colonial Africa thats one example of why the wheel was not used it was extremely cumbersome to use wheeled vehicles for transport, i doubt Africans never knew if the wheel, we just did not see them as needed I think people often forget that development is based on availability of resources as well as a cost benefit analysis wheels were not cheap in europe for the longest time not saying thats the main reason but Africans were probably not all that interested in something that offered little benefit
I watched the vid i was just making a statement, its similar to the argument of writing which ignores not only need but the fact that cultures are different The yoruba people used aroko as a form of long distance non audio communication for example, but outside of that Griots were obviously useful enough that few thought all that deeply about it
I was genuinely surprised the first time I found just how recent the invention of the wheel was. I always thought it was way more ancient and way more prominent. Because well... It just seems so obvious. It really go's to show that we a lot of things today or not so far back for granted. Humans have a really hard time imagining and comprehending things that we don't know the existence of. Things that seem obvious now, someone had to think about that without any basis first. Videos like this really show us the depths of human enginuity, things aren't created in a vacuum, but through exchanges.
@@billyb4790 Yeah let's just totally ignore North America, South America, Australia, large swaths of Northern Asia, and the whole of Polynesia and just single out Sub-Saharan Africa. Yeah that seems fine.
If the cultures of ancient Africa and the Americas had a long strip of land where it was easy to travel, you bet these cultures would have made use of the wheel. Lower Eurasia had trade routes/roads with similar times zones moving east to west across similar climates and topography along a flat land made it easy to trade and move goods in a path nearly 5,000 miles long which made it perfect for wheeled vehicles to evolve. The wheel was invented in Mesopotamia and the axle evolved in Egypt while suspension/cars and flight experiment began in China. Thx FN, this needs to be pointed out, there is nuances of why the wheel was used or not in ancient times.
This is really great video! One thing I'd like to add is that the wheel may also have been less effective in the forest terrain of West and Central Africa. My reason for thinking this comes form the evidence you pointed out. You said that the wheel use in West Africa was almost completely ceremonial. My guess is that had the wheel been a practical form of transport in pre-industrial West Africa, than it would have been used for more than just ceremonies.
I had to deprogram myself. I feel like the way our educational system is in the US...they are not honest about this. Everything turns very racial. As a black person, I was always sad and confused about why it seemed like black people didn't invent anything useful. I felt like it was ingrained in us that we weren't smart or intelligent enough. No one taught things to us in this way (the way it is presented in this video).
@@lisacox3750 Oral records over written records is a reason why knowledge didn't grow as fast. The culture didn't face any new challenges to develop further.
The Tsetse fly is an insect that infects and kills horses, making them rare or non existent in certain regions. If you look up their distribution, you'd find they they are almost exclusively found in the western, central and southeastern regions of Africa. No horses in those regions, no carts, no wheel.
So they make fun of our “round mud huts” cause they don’t abide by the square shaped European favoritism in architecture, yet claim we never invented the wheel…
It's funny how some people say "but what about wheelbarrows?" when the wheelbarrow was only definitively invented ONCE in China in 231 AD (it might has been a bit ealier). It then took about a thousand years for the technology to spread to Medieval Europe. It's treated as some kind of obvious and primitive application, but the evidence doesn't support that at all. Especially considering it took the Chinese over 2000 years after the wheel to make the connection. Wheels and all their various applications are clearly more advanced and situational than many of us realize.
I found your channel a week ago, I thought at first it’s was an Afrocentric ( I don’t use this term I prefer use blackcentric because it’s claim an random civilisation as black civilisation not africain ), but it’s wasn’t ! You’re channel are in my top 5 fav history channel and i am really grateful that I can finally learn history of others civilisation in Africa a without political view. And I really like the moors video I don’t know why people claiming Moors as an ETHNIC GROUP lol Africa it’s such an underrated continent sadly but in my heart it’s the most beautiful and more diverse than others continent 😔 BTW I an North African ✨
Excellent video. 7:21 , another rare example would be the “Forowa” Treasure box used by the Ashanti. It was a wheeled treasure box containing the emperors riches.
From what I’ve learnt, even places that were very familiar with the wheel and were unsuitable for camels like Europe and East Asia did not prefer wheel transport and primarily used river systems and pack animals.
Somalis had carts and wheelbarrows and they have the largest population of camels in the world so this video is using central/west Africa to denote ALL of Africa.. Egyptians had chariots
@@samanth. mystical but yet there's archaeological evidence for trade from mycenean pottery found in somalia to the goods founding by excavations in Egypt... Myth you know 😆
I have had to deprogram myself too. In the US it is ingrained in us what "civilized" and "developed" is and it is always associated with either European or Asian societies. It made me feel like as a black American that we just weren't intelligent enough. I am learning too. It's a process to de-program yourself.
it is indeed subjective , take the romans and greeks for example . they pretty much considered everyone who wasn't them as barbarians even eachother lmao, I'm a descendant of both btw.
I knew a little bit of this but still learned a lot! It never even occurred to me that camels by themselves would be more efficient than wheels. We all have to unlearn the idea that technology always progresses a certain way.
Camels are not more efficient than wheels 😂😂😂 omg what a comment. It takes years of feeding a camel to get it strong enough to carry a load, and even then the camel will only work when it wants to, they’re not obedient like horses Bc horses have an alpha, once the alpha horse is tamed the entire pack will be obedient. Very naive and innocent of u
Some interesting theories, but unfortunately also quite deficient and flawed. First of all, let's clarify a few misconceptions. The wheel was invented or known to almost all ancient cultures of the world. And how could it not? It was a simple adaptation of a basic circle. Not all cultures, however, implemented the wheel as a means of transport, and I think this is what most people mean when they say such and such a people never "invented the wheel". Of course they did, they just didn't employ it for transport. This is evidenced by archeological evidence from all over the world. Every culture has artefacts, dishes and toys shaped in the form of wheels and circles. Why did some cultures however, never go one step further and use the wheel as a transport mechanism? The answer is simple: the animal required to pull wheel-based carts and chariots, the domesticated horse, was native mostly to the Eurasia continent. The domesticated horse was unknown in both American continents, which explains why Mesoamerican societies never implemented the wheel as a transport solution. The only domesticated animal available to them for this purpose would have been the alpaca, and as they are much smaller and weaker than domesticated horses, they were entirely unsuitable to pulling heavy loads. So the wheel was confined to children's toys and plates and other utensils in Mesoamerica. The domesticated horse was first introduced to the Americas with the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th century. The horse is likewise not native to Sub-Saharan Africa, which is why it would have never occurred to the population of this continent to build horse-drawn carts and chariots. The only species of horse in Sub-Saharan Africa is the zebra, which is NOTORIOUSLY aggressive and untamable. Man has tried for centuries to tame and domesticate the zebra, but it has violently resisted all human attempts at domestication. As a matter of fact, the mortality rate of humans killed by zebras in Africa is alarming high - for example much higher than lions and other predators. In short, in the history of mankind no zebra has ever been successfully domesticated, which is why the wheel was never used for transport in Sub-Saharan Africa. Another reason often overlooked is that Sub-Saharan Africa has an almost complete lack of navigable rivers. Most rivers on the continent are either too narrow or shallow for ships, and of the few deep rivers that exist, they are either only full during the rainy season (and then dry up thereafter), or they feed into waterfalls. Without navigable rivers there's no need to manufacture goods for trade, which means no need to invent ships to transport those goods, which means no need to invent horse-drawn carriages to transport those goods to ships, which means no need to repurpose the wheel as a transportation device. The third reason for the lack of wheel is that Sub-Saharan Africa also lacks suitable natural harbors. Although surrounded by water, most of the harbors in Sub-Saharan Africa are too shallow to accommodate ships, therefore no need for horses to transport goods to the harbor for trade. This is coincidentally why slave ships during the Atlantic Slave Trade had to dock a few miles out at sea and then transport their human cargo via small boats to and from the coast. This is also why Sub-Saharan Africans never progressed to become developed, seafaring and technologically advanced major world powers like the Europeans or Asians - they had no domesticated horses, no navigable rivers and no deep-water harbors to accommodate ships. No ships means no trade with the outside world. No trade with the outside world means no technological development. No technological development means you're a sitting duck at the mercy of other technologically superior civilizations. This is also why Africa had no choice but to specialize in the export of high value commodities like gold, ivory and slaves. It was their only feasible home-grown industry, and the only goods they had to trade in exchange for goods from other continents. This is why Sub-Sahara Africa became such a specialist in the export of slaves for well over a thousand years. When the Europeans approached Africa in the 15th century to purchase slaves, they already found a thriving slave trade network, with well established logistic support and middle men capable of procuring slaves to meet every demand. This African slave industry had already been operating for centuries supplying the various Indian empires, the Persian Empire, the various Arab Empires as well as the Ottoman Empire with slaves.
@@hulahula6182 Yes, but only to a very limited extent. Humans aren't capable of pushing heavy loads in a wheel barrow for hundreds of miles. A horse, in contrast, is fully capable of pulling heavy loads for hundreds of miles. That's why they were used for thousands of years in Europe, Asia and the Middle East to transport people via horse-drawn carriages or as beasts of burden to transport crops and other wares for sale across entire continents. This was completely lacking in Sub-Sahara Africa and on the two American continents due to their lack of horses.
@@CurtisCT buddy, if pushing load with a wheelbarrow is too much work, wouldnt hand carrying the load be much worse? Also, Africa has elephants, no? Ottomans tamed elephants for war, europeans tamed elephants for circus, thailand people tamed them to clear woods, yet africans can't?
@@hulahula6182 I don't understand the point you're trying to make with wheelbarrows. I pointed out that yes, humans are capable of pushing a wheelbarrow, but not for heavy loads over long distances. This would make it very impractical to transport goods for trade from the interior of the African continent to the coast, for example. A single horse, by contrast, is capable of transporting a much heavier load and over much longer distances, which is why they were utilized for thousands of years in Eurasia and the Middle East as beasts of burden. Re elephants, they can be tamed, but not domesticated - there's a very important difference. Taming an animal entails capturing it from the wild and training it to carry out a specific task. When that animal dies however, you have to start all over again from the beginning with a new animal taken from the wild. Domestication involves controlling and manipulating the reproductive capabilities of an animal to serve human interests. We've been very successful at domesticating goats, sheep, horses, cows, pigs, chickens, cats, dogs, etc. This involved capturing them from the wild and then subjecting them to an intense selection and breeding process over thousands of years to produce docile animals with desirable traits, e.g. bulky bodies for meat consumption in the case of cows and chickens, increased muscles for carrying weight in the case of horses or increased wool production for making clothes in the case of sheep. This is not possible with elephants on account of their vast size and very prodigious food requirements. This is why in the entire history of humans, we've only managed to tame elephants but never domesticate them.
@@CurtisCT 👩🏾💼 but, wait. aren't there certain types of indigenous cattle even stronger than horses that could've been used? maybe not for riding, but definitely for plowing and transport of heavy goods. the wheel would've been extremely useful to make whatever burden much easier on the beast, thus maximizing it's longevity . why wasn't the wheel used that way?
You say some facts but I feel like you over simply some things and neglect to say other things. 1. The wheel was an expensive way of traveling in both Europe and south east aisia, which means it was mostly only done when the journey was short or a large cumbersome army was involved. Which means they used rivers to transport as close to their destination as possible only using the wheel when it was necessary. 2. Camels weren't only used in North Africa and the Middle East it was also preferred in North India. 3. Odds are Africans knew about the wheel simply because they weren't fully cut off from the whole world. Africa sub Sahara has been trading with aisians and Europeans so odds are someone would have seen or at least heard about. 4. The wheel wasn't use full in sandy areas because camles were better and Europeans didn't use camales because off the cold. 5. One could argue the same for Africans, places with the (can't write the name) fly was common it meant that live stock was difficult the keep so they simply didn't have something strong to pull the weight. 6. So what about places in Africa the fly wasn't around in those places one could argue that most of which they needed to transport had legs of their own and in that case the wheel was simply redundant. To sum up: No Africans weren't primitive they simply used what worked best in their climate and conditions. And the wheel simply wasn't a transport of choice until mutch later in history. Thank you. This lump of information is learnt over the chores of my short yet fun life so don't have sources close at hand but if you do your research it simply can't be hard someone who might be more reliable then me some person on Internet who surprisingly is making one of his first comments. Have a great day.
No, that's because of disease. That's why most Africans aren't extinct despite lack of the wheel. Not sure how or why you think a wheel has anything to do with extinction.
The Wheel is to make it easier to haul heavy loads. Most African and American animals are unsuited to domestication so without domestic horse or oxen, no carts and no carts, no wheel. Africa DID have cattle so should have had the wheel.
It's simple, the invention of the wheel, as simple and ridiculous as it may sound, was just invented once and then spread to the known civilizations. Something so simple, just couldn't get through people's head that it could become so usefull.
So the Inca Empire was a hunter-gatherer society? Ancient Egypt as well? What about the Aztec and Maya? Also hunter-gatherers? I'll answer that for you, no that wasn't the case at all and your statement about the wheel being required for not being "hunter-gatherer" is just painfully false.
🤣🤣🤣 just coz u dropped out of school doesn't mean u have to force your stupidity on us, the African was a farmer, that's the basic subsaharan culture, the hunter & gatherer were so few, please read some books coz your ignorance is showing
Indeed, all of us blacks just go out and buy $4000 rims on beat up cars and we're all doing it because our ancestors didn't use the wheel. This guy has it all figured out. I should probably discard my $25,000 car with stock rims and follow the trend huh?
@@Saint-hamudiYou sound so cringe, hamudi, it's funny how other minorities will look down on the black man, yet the white man is still out here persecuting your people on the streets and you fail to react to that.
I love your channel and how you don't mention egypt at all! I think you should make a video on the Kushite Empire. I understand you might be shying away from it out of fear of being called an afro-centrist as it was related to the kingdom of egypt in some way but trust me the Kushites were definitely Sub-saharan africans who were very distinct genetically to egyptians for the most part. In pre-dynastic egypt and early dynastic egypt, there were some genetic similarties between the two but if you have your doubts don't worry, the Kushites were most defnitely Black Sub-saharan Africans. They had established a powerful kingdom south of egypt and in fact they developed major cities and centralised forms of government before the creation of ancient egypt. The Kushites had even conquered egypt at some point in history and successfully fought off the romans when the egyptians failed. So much black history to talk about and I think it would provide you with a plethora of content for years. Kushite history is definitely up there with the peak of what Africa has to offer. I'd love to see my peoples achievments acknowledged for their contribution to Black history.
Thanks for the love. I'm well aware of the Nubians. I've mentioned them in videos from time to time but the Nile Valley civilizations as a whole receive much more attention than the rest of Sub-Saharan African history. That's why I shy away from that region. Not that I won't talk about them at all, just not in my priorities.
@@some1350 yesss that is actually quite true. If you look at culture and artefacts from pre dynastic egypt there are ALOT of similarities to modern day nilotic culture in the great lakes region of africa and there are also identical aspects of pre dynastic egyptian culture that match Nubian culture to the south. Its evident that the first egyptians must have been new settlers in the region of nubia who had migrated north down the nile and settled where egypt was. The very first egyptians were definitely Sub-saharan africans but sadly their presence drastically decreased after the migrations from the levant and egypt lost its Sub-saharan identity within a couple of centuries.
@@cloroxbleach9237 There have always been a lot of black people in ancient egypt. We know that the Kush dynasty was a black dynasty and the ancient Egyptians mixed with Nubians.
While for now it is assumed that the wheel was developed in Mesopotamia (as David Anthony states in Horse Wheel and language) The earliest depiction of the wheel anywhere in the world is the Bronocice cup from what is now Poland. The engraving clearly shows a 4 wheeled vehicle. There is also a wheel track in Germany dating from almost the same time. Wheeled wagons or carts really make sense for pastoral people in grasslands like the Pontic Caspian region. There is a period when settlements are mainly in river valleys are suddenly mobile and move around. This allows greater pasture for their animals and horse riding also allows larger herds. The interesting thing is when the wheel appeared it spread very rapidly in Europe and Asia within a couple hundred years. The exception was Egypt. Since Egypt primarily used river based transport up and down the Nile it wasn't needed as much. Egypt during the first dark age in the late 1600s BC was invaded by the chariot riding people called the Hyksos. The chariot was most certainly invented in central asia (Sintashta) etc and that is the technology that spread to the middle east. Essentially there has to be a need for something but also a level of metallurgy and carpentry to be able to make wheels, axles etc. for it to appear.
So basically, they probably have invented the wheel at some point, but they just sunk into the sand so they just went like "Camels are faster if they don't have to pull these carts that get stuck all the time".
See the methodology of the IQ studies. Using impoverished orphaned children and extremely dubious methods to arrive at those numbers. Extreme travesty of science and psychology.
I think the idea that Nupe adopted the wheel is like likely than independent discovery cuz, well, their neighbours should have had it as well if they adopted it.
Sadly some of the loud voices of "all history was black" made me unsure what to expect from this video. I was pleasently surprised. Okay, surprised might be a bit of a strong word. But I found this video interesting and well researched. Thank you for your effort.
No wheels, because: tsetse fly. It makes perfect sense, when you know it, but is a complete and utter mystery, when you don't. It's one of those connections that illustrate how complex the World is, and what a tremendous undertaking it is to try and understand it. From what I know, the spoked wheel was invented around the south Urals, among the Proto-Indo-European speaking tribes (e.g. Corded Ware, Yamnaya, Sintashta cultures), who promptly used it to make war chariots, which they promptly "introduced" to the peoples of Europe and the Middle East, all the way to India. Very "generous" of them. Anyway, it caught on, wherever there were horses and flat ground, and, before anyone knew what had happened, people were killing each other with much greater speed and efficiency than before. In fairness, there were other uses of the wheel, those uses just didn't travel quite as fast. It may have been independently invented, but once is plenty to explain how it would become ubiquitous in most of the World. Edit: Typo.
@@erikjrn4080 exactly doesnt make sense Somalia has the largest population of camels which is where it was first domesticated and they STILL developed the wheel even Herodotus noted their use of carts in places like Opone
@@skp8748 Camels require a very particular environment. So do horses. Donkeys are maybe the most versatile, but even they have requirements. It's been a while since I saw this video, but, unless I'm much mistaken, what we're talking about here, are regions where neither would thrive.
@@skp8748 Herodotus never spoke about Somalia, punt was in Djibouti & not somalia, somalis used stone & bronze tools until bantus introduced iron, west Africa had great empires compared to just a small insignificant kingdom
Pre colonial filipinos achived far less than pre colonial africans, yet i dont see any far right youtuber pointing out that fact and calling your people subhuman..... beacuse no one is subhuman and racism is stupid
the wheel is evolved from the geometric circle also the circle found in nature (moon ,sun, mud ball, flat round rock, bead , neckless, the eye pupil ,turning around, clay pot,) the only way to escape the circle is to ignore it.
I find it funny how people still comment about how African lacking wheel technology as some sort of gacha when others people didn't have wheels ethier like native Americans and polysians for the same reasons of their terrains not being viable for road building compared to eurasia.
I know that, but people like him need the content and never did the actual research like going there themselves. P.s. some of the research that he uses is European research.
Europeans, on the other hand, made use of wheels very heavily once they were introduced. (Especially sub-Saharan) Africans seem not to have until they were colonized.
@@J-Ton wheels were not logistically viable in SSA though, even in the Middle East camels without wheels were preferred and africas terrain made the use of wheels not as important which is why Europeans even stopped using wheels much when in the continent. It all comes down to the role a wheel plays within a society and environment (desieases and fauna also effect horses) and in non Eurasian environment’s horses were more of a detriment and just not as necessary as manpower, only Exception to this being North America
So the wheel really becomes a huge advancement in a society that is engineering projects, producing enough agriculture that requires practical transportation and then that part of Africa with just the number of languages even in small areas it shows to disconnect in small scale Societies that existed. Because of the climate Africans tend to live hand to mouth I’m so large scale production of food wasn’t really essential. We see the same thing with the American Indian.
What you're are saying describes specific areas of Africa, not the norm. Do not generalise, Africa is the 2nd largest continent after all. Large scale agriculture in Sub Saharan Africa was very common in the Sahel, Non-Coastal West Africa, Central, East Africa and parts of Southern Africa like areas where the Bakoni inhabited. There was also an agricultural revolution in West/Central Africa shortly within the same period of the agric revolution in pre bronze age middle East. Agriculture was independly developed in this region on a large scale circa 2K BC, driven by states like the Kintampo Complex, Sao Civilization, Dia and Tchitt Walatta.
@@Niani23455 Your right the continent of Africa is huge but lets focus on sub Saharan. When was the first printing press made? Or the first blast furnace?
@@59Gretsch "First blast furnace?" No specific answer but I do know that metallurgical furnaces across West Africa date to the BC era. For instance, furnaces from the Nok of Nigeria date to the 7th or 6th centuries BC. "First printing press?" The printing press came in late because sub Saharan Africa was isolated from Eurasia.
@@Niani23455 If all this metallurgy was going on, why could foreign traders wield such influence with simple metal items? Read up on China's big effort at building smelting production all across china under Communism. Huge failure, millions died. Doing metal is not easy. Go on TH-cam and see people try in their backyard with all the modern help.
@@59Gretsch "If all this metallurgy was going on, why could foreign traders wield such influence on simple metals?" In what context are you speaking, past or present? There were states in pre colonial Africa that had good metallurgy. Ancient (BC era) Tanzanians could smelt carbon steel. Iron/bronze metallurgy was very prominent across West, Sahel and Central Africa. Places like Benin Kingdom used the lost wax method for their bronze statues or as the Akan did for their goldweights. There is scholarly debate that it is possible these African kingdoms/empires jumped straight to an iron age without going through a bronze age.
People didnt feel the need for smartphones to surf internet too, yet now everyone's using it. "Didnt feel the need" is just excuse for their short-sightedness
@@hulahula6182 "yet now everyone uses it" no one was using smartphones 500 years and actually your analogy further proves the point that the wheel was not needed up until now. Calling Africans "short-sighted" for utilizing other efficient methods of transportation is extremely bigoted.
@@hulahula6182 Wisdom? Do you even know what kind of words you're using? And Wakanda is a fictional country-try using real countries if you can even name them. Is this suppose to be the pinnacle of white supremacy? If so, then all hope is truly lost for the white race. Do better.
@@cavaugnsharkey2699 buddy, u said wheels aren't important for civilization advancement 😂😂 wheels are literally the fundamentals of successful budding civilizations, yet you think they are " unnecessary" HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH no long term thinking whatsoever, no wonder HAHAHAHAH
There's a difference between inventing, learning and using it. The thing is that they never used it for much, probably because wheels aren't that useful without roads and there's limitations to this day in road construction. I'd wager that the wheel has been invented several times independently, it's just that it's not that useful without the right environment to use it without roads. And then it was shared even more times. But there's a reason why we don't go around on roller skaters everywhere.
@@lloydgush I used to ride my bike to the beach with a dog stroller/trailer in tow....when I would get there I would lock the bikes up, let my dog out and use the trailer to help me rolll the stuff down to the beach...... So uhhh. Wheels work fine in sand. If your wheels sinking into the sand. You need to spread out the weight
@@manz7860 "You just need bigger wheels, dude", eventually a cammel is a better option. And that's with modern technology, no rubber thick light wheels.
The wheel is fundamental for most forms of advanced mechanics, which, for thousands of years, was identical with "technology". Without wheels, there can be no windmills, clocks, steam engines, pulleys, etc.. Most moving parts rely on wheels and circular motion, in some way or other. Even electricity requires wheels to be generated (in large amounts). That makes it a necessity for _technologically_ advanced civilization, which, of course, is very different from _advanced civilization._ Architecture, math, literacy, medicine, government, economy, philosophy... The list of possible advancements that aren't technological is very long.
yes, and the answer to your question is in your comment. The issue is thae Eurocentrics at some point "decided" what the "pinnacle of civilization" was supposed to be. So, everyone else got judged by their barometer. That's the issue!
@@hulahula6182 Clearly, when you premise it as "huts", the answer must be 'no'. Huts can't be "advanced architecture", no matter what they're made from. Huts are always small, pragmatic, unassuming structures. However, mud can and has been used in advanced architecture. Very large and complex structures have been made, using clay and straw as the primary materials. That's the same technology as "mud huts". Some of these structures have stood for thousands of years. Some are still being used. Look up the Great Mosque of Djenné, for an advanced "mud hut".
If you even bothered watching the entire video, I find it concerning and baffling that even after watching it, being aware of the complexity of the topic, and also covering the fact that the wheel was absent in North America, South America, Australia, Polynesia, and most (but not all) of Africa, basically the majority of the WORLD, and that it was only ever VERY RECENTLY was invented once or twice and the rest of its use and adoption spread through trade, migration, and warfare, and the role that the camel played in hindering its spread yet your only response is about the bell curve. Seems a little bigoted don't you think?
@@FromNothing bigoted? Maybe. I consider myself a realist on racial issues. Diversity is not our greatest strength. You people are being used as a weapon.
The bell curve has been debunked by scientists (geneticists, neuroscientists, evolutionary biologists, etc) for decades lol Anyways what does it have anything to do with the video whatsoever?
@@phiteb it's proven when those primitives deny their inferior African origins and now proudly claim to be indigenous to the Americas. Proof the New World cultures are superior to Sub-Saharan cultures.
@@FromNothing i doubt it would be an easy task to achieve. I've worked with horses and breaking a horse can be a long and complicated procedure, even if they're not wild animals, there's always that instinct present.
Zebras are notoriously more aggressive, dangerous, and easily spooked than even wild horses. Europeans tried and failed to domesticate the zebra too. Only very limited instances of taming (not domesticating) were successful.
@@pxpq Yes, bowls are complex, as are wheels, and fire. He does a good explanation of why wheels were not used, but to call them primitive is just plain silly. I'm not aware of any animals using wheels, or fire. By today's standards these things do seem simple, but we don't get where we're at without these things.
@@mikeekim242 Based on your comment I assume you didn't watch any more than 23 seconds of the video. If you made it past that part then you would know that it was sarcasm. So maybe before you go calling me silly, you should check your own silliness which comes in the form of judging the video without even watching it.
@@mikeekim242 Lmao, there is no mind reading needed. You literally just watch the video. I sarcastically say it and then IMMEDIATELY afterwards I mention that it is completely untrue and that the wheel is highly specialized. Seriously dude, don't make this about me, it's about you not watching the video. That is literally the only issue here.
@@asabovesobelow3023 Obviously it did so maybe African adoption of the wheel took longer due to the landscape changes over time. Technology is not universally useful for every circumstances
WTF is up with everyone talking about African and the Wheel?... if you have what you need, and life is good, you don't envision better... where and WHY was the wheel developed? What was the first purpose of the wheel in each culture that implemented it? Possibly because heavy items needed to be transported over large distances... did the Zulu need this or were then basically regional in their logistics? Many cultures didn't "invent" the wheel... No one in the entire American Continents or most of the Pacific Islanders or Australia developed the wheel...
We are Global Indigenous people!! Love and Unity is the best key for us all together!!💯 Also Giving thanks to the Great Mother's/Goddesses and Great Father's/Gods and the Ancestors and Guardians!! Saying from Snefer aka Bashiyr!!👸🏿🤴🏿
@@samanth. damn arguing basic geographical realities that allowed for the use of the wheel... that's new buy you know what's not? The carts and water wheels used as early as 300bce in somalia first invented in sumeria in 3500bce used in Africa first by Egypt who were engaged in chariot warfare from at least 1350BCE... The wheel isn't really a trump card anyhow most of subsaharan africa isn't geographically conducive to wheeled contraptions. Whereas the east not only had contact with its inventors but didn't have to deal with dense forestry or the vast swathes of arable land while excellent for farming made wheel useless due to mud from rainfall. As for you laughing imma assume you did consider it an embarrassment when the Europeans came and couldn't believe you didn't even have the wheel (which BTW isn't really true)
For the same reason that there's never been a world chess champion of sub-Saharan African descent and without exception anywhere those of sub-Saharan African descent are clustered from Africa to US inner cities is a craphole.
@@obbzerver That's right, start making assumptions and throwing insults instead of actually watching the video and having a logical discussion. Good stuff man.
@@FromNothing I did watch it - North Africa was totally different than sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharans learned about the wheel from others, they didn't come up with it on their own.
@Your Final Hiring Agency you are forgetting about tsetse flies and their trypanosome parasites. Large areas of Africa can not have horses because of those parasites.
You're trying too hard, Samantha. The people of Sub-Saharan Africa invented *nothing*. The people of North Africa, however, are a different creed of African. So you don't get to piggyback their many achievements.
@@samanth. Morocco; Algeria; Tunis; Libya; Egypt all share the shoreline of the Mediterranean (along with Europe and the Middle East) where trading and knowledge led to North Africa acquiring democracy; government; science; mathematics; astronomy; crop irrigation; metallurgy; ship building; medicine, etc. International trade routes allowed N. Africa to flourish for over one thousand years, while Sub-Saharan Africa remained unenlightened. Only Northern Sudan can boast such superb architecture -- though note which N. African country it shares its border with. However, N. Africa was late with the introduction of the wheel (chariot wheel & water wheel) and some metal work. Additionally, the ancient people of North Africa -- more so the ancient Egyptians -- were genetically aligned with the Middle East (Iran) and Europe (Turkey) rather than Sub-Saharan Africans. Their ancient language belonged to the Semitic variety, and they possessed blonde and red hair -- hence ancient North Africans were *not* bláck.
That is very good video! So, the camel killed its competition in Africa. Makes sense. BTW, what is the music by 11-13 minutes? I have heard it somewhere and now it bugs me that I can't remember...
Sub-saharan also do not invented writing script, mathematic, no scholar and scientist. no grand sophiscated architecture and monument that rival or comprable to europe, asia and mesoamerica. Great zimbabwe wall just bronze ages standard wall for europe like 'Grianan of Aileach, Dún Aonghasa and Doon Fort" nothing special. Do not made something do not exist and try to made equal and comprable to others great civilization, Australian aboriginal vs southeast asia and east asia and sub-saharan africa vs middle-east and europe is not great comparison.
The terrain not being favorable is not a good explanation at all. No where in the world is the terrain favorable. Civilizations had to create roads in order to facilitate the invention of the wheel because they saw the obvious benefit of it.
No, it is a good argument when you account for where the wheels were invented. The wheels were generally invented in flat regions(relatively), not in mountainous regions. And it is favorable in flat terrains blud, I don't know how you can deny that. Especially in regions like the steppes. Vehicles are used in places that have no roads, but regardless without the road we wouldn't have invented the vehicle because the road open the room of the vehicle to be conceived of, yet alone have been created. Do you see my point?
The wheel was invented at the same time as the boat There's a tree trunk rolling in a river It kept floating That is the invention of the wheel and the boat It just needed a little bit of math A trait that Neanderthals had
@@FromNothing He made the same comment on another video by a history professor saying the same thing. This bloke lacks the IQ to have any semblance of creativity.
So because the wheel was no terribly useful in the sandy northern parts, they places where it would be useful decided not to use it too. Makes sense. ;)
Another great video. I'm glad you pointed out the Meso-Americans and how they invented wheels but didn't use them for other than toys. I think in modern culture we are so reliant on wheels with automobiles and such we can't really think how a civilization could function without it.
Somalis used the wheel Egyptians used the wheel.
Both are in africa
To not use the wheel shows how primitive they were, are
@@markwhite8332 weak bait, bro
@@jordanjoestar-turniptruck not ur bro.
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They just shot 4 kids at Hollywood Beach, 2022 over 50 kids shot in Chicago. Wake up BRO
@@jordanjoestar-turniptruck shut u up quick 😄😎
I didn't invent the wheel either, and people don't treat me like a subhuman because of it. They treat me like that because I'm an idiot :D
lol
Yeah, but do you have the intellectual capability of inventing a wheel? If so, congrats. You're smarter than Africa
Great work on a really good topic! I'd also point out that living in the society that we do, we are biased in thinking that the wheel is "obvious". If we didn't live in a world with cars, maintained roads, shopping carts and bicycles, I doubt we'd see the wheel the way that we do.
Hey, love your videos!!
Conversely, if any of us were thrown back in time and had to function in ancient societies, they would call us the idiots for not thinking of the tools that were obvious to them but are now obsolete and near-forgotten in our globalized and hyper-industrialized environment. This, and your own videos on subjects like native copper have helped me to more fully appreciate how cultures and people thrive by specializing to their resources and environments
@@jordanjoestar-turniptruck thank you!
still doesnt explain the thousands of years without any form of self improvement and advancement
@@sanderaadams4991it doesn't explain it because ur statement isn't factual.
When mentioning the Potters Wheel, it seems to be one of several things that were developed independently in West Africa. Others being iron and agriculture. What I find extremly interesting about West Africa is that it seems that the civilization there may have developed more or less completely independent rather than being something that spread from somewhere else?
I have always wager that the niger bend culture should be considered its own cradle of civilization since the niger River provided a source for agricultural farming that's would have eventually evolved to the dar tichitt civilization, nok, and djnee civilization. Plus those 3 culture are contemporary to civilization like ancient China, and mesoamerica.
I would also include the Mississippian culture should included as a new cradle of civilization as well.
@@thatguy464 I think the Mississippi civilization possibly spread from Mesoamerica. With the Niger River though, it is distinct from other civilization, possible an outlier like the Indus Civilization and we have a large very undeveloped zone between it and the other civilizations of the time, suggest that it did not spread there from somewhere else.
@@steinarvilnes3954 pretty sure the Mississippian culture develop independently from mesoamerica cultures, what they have in common is maze production. And I agree that the early niger bend culture are an outlier much like the indus valley civilization, but even the indus valley civilization is still a cradle of civilization even modern Indian barely have anything to do with. Think as the nok culture similar to the olmacs, a parent civilization to other mesoamerica culture like the maya, zaptecs, and aztec that lay down the blue print.
I noticed this too I think it is because west Africa is a geographically distinct region roughly the same size as Europe, boarded by a desert to the north, mountains to the east, and oceans to the south a west.
The modern day populations of the region migrated there a few thousand years ago and formed trading cities that eventually became empires with their own politics institutions and cultures and law, but all within this wider system that developed in this distinct region. Very similar to the states in Europe in that sense.
One example of this is (but not the only) Dar Tichit - Walata - ancient Ghana empire - Mali empire, Songhai empire then all the successor states that formed in their wake.
The hegemon of this region was traditionally the sahellian empires of Ghana-Mali-Songhai and after Mali-Songhai declined to led to a ‘dark age’ in the region where lots of smaller empires rose up to try to claim the prestige, institutions and trade positions of the hegimons of the region. This led to lots of smaller wars, not too dissimilar to Europe after the fall of Rome or China after its various dynastic collapses.
More war = more P.O.W, & more P.O.W = more slaves. This time period coincides with the colonisation of the americas by the Europeans and the advent of the the trans Atlantic slave trade.
Eventually the region began to stabilise in the early 1800s with new empires becoming more established (Ashanti, Dahomey, Hausa land-Sokoto etc) but the partition of Africa by the Europeans happened and set things back.
But I agree that west Africa is its own distinct civilisation and that the Niger bend is a cradle of civ much like the Indus, yellow valley, Mesopotamia etc.
@@second2none914 But Ghana empire is a bit "late", about 800 AD. What is very interesting in my opinion, is that cities seems have existed for a long time before that. I have seen times everywhere from 1200BC to 200BC for the birth of the Niger River Valley civilization. So what is interesting is how the people of West Africa managed to have cities and complex trade networks for many centuries, seemingly without centralized government.
Besides Egypt using the horse and chariot so to did the Nubians. The Garamantes of North Africa who were called Ethiopians by many sources also used the horse and chariot.
Ah yes the whole: "Africans didn't invent this easy to develop thing"
My guy most humans didn't invent said thing!
It's really important that videos like this remind people that technology develops based on available material and necessity created by the environment people live in and Africans "not inventing the wheel" really shouldn't be used to degrade them.
Did you watch the video?
Same as saying "Western Europeans didn't domesticate the camel! What 'primitives'!"
@@kinglewisjtl24 yes. The first part of my comment was pointing out the stupidity of people who make arguments like that.
The second part of my comment was me agreeing with the points made in the video
This makes me realize how superior my people are and were.
@@abthedragon4921 thank you! I find your comment unclear which may takeaway from your intention. But overall I agree with you
Fun fact. The wheel was almost never used in Japan until after the 19th century. Traffic of materials, even in large amounts, was done on human backs and rarely by horse or cart. Even wheelbarrows were virtually unheard of in Japan.
Source: "The Use of the Wheel in Japan" by Alan Macfarlane.
That might have to do with the tokugawa government ban on wheeled vehicles because they were paranoid someone would overthrow them, not because they didn't knew the existence of the wheel or didn't knew how to use it. In fact when the ban on wheeled vehicles was lifted Japan developed it's own rickshaw transport system independently from the ones in the west.
@@mitonaarea5856 The Tokugawa era spans from the 17th-19th centuries. What about the rest of the time before that? Japan surely knew of the wheel before, but didn't or couldn't make widespread use of it. And there's nothing wrong with that. A similar thing could be said about Africa. It didn't have the wheel because the environment was not conducive to its use or development, but after modernization Africans decided the wheel was useful and even developed their own makeshift vehicles out of scrap metal and wood.
@@bluebird5173 Actually the wheel was widely used especially during the heian era. It seems that when the emperors lost power the wheel lost favor to other types of transport.
They still had it though 🗿🗿
And what happened after they opened themselves to the world? Yeah they became a world power and became modernized quickly
I think wheel development in Africa, the Americas, and even southern Asia, just didn't have sufficient practical application. Aside from tsetse fly infestation, the tropical zone of sub-Saharan Africa would have been so thickly forested that wheel-accessible roads would perforce have been much harder to build and maintain. Even today much of the Amazon and Congo basins are more accessible by boat than by road.
I'd love to know more about the potter's wheel, though.
The wheel was in somalia 300bc
😅😅😅😅😅😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😅😅😅😅😂😂😂😂 yeah right 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
@@skp8748 yea but that’s Bc of Sumerian influence, and pop movement into somalia from their.
Actually if you look up simple pulleys you’ll see they use a wheel. This is actually why African structures remained so small, there was no pulley systems to move giant objects.
@yousifboti well before the first dynasty actually. A lot of egypts pre dynasty art has the same humans with bug eyes as the summerians and god kings wrestling lions with braided beards like summers. The archeological record shows a massive leap from bone and stick with scratching to these and that kind of change is evidence of incoming pop groups.
In 1824 CE, the king of Lagos gifted a large-sized carriage to the emperor of Brazil.
CITATION - Law, Robin (1980). "Wheeled transport in pre-colonial West Africa". Africa. 50 (3): 249-254.
I hate that the Eurasian way has become synonymous with civilization just because they’ve been successful with dominating everything in their path. In reality there’s more than one way to live and thrive. It just depends on what the people have that’s available to them and how they decide to use it. From what I can tell, the people in Eurasia were basically playing civilization on easy mode as they simply had more advantages that the land, geography and climate provided for them. It’s certainly much more nuanced than those who like to think that Eurasians are simply more intelligent.
The "Eurasian Way" put a man on the moon. The "African Way" put a "man" in a flaming tire. They are not, and will never be equal
Eurasian man kept creating civilisations and invented pretty much every single thing we have
@@ahmadsuleman9045 Such a non argument. Your comment does not engage with the main point at hand of OP's comment.
@@ahmadsuleman9045was you there to confirm man was on the moon ? Funny enough I don’t recall of your people being involved in the NASA space team
During the time
@@Pax-Islamica Most humans supposedly migrated from Africa. Those that stayed never developed. Plus that argument of geography and climate is BS if you take into consideration that early humans in Eurasia had to deal with severe cold temperatures due to the Ice age. In contrast Africa was warmer and still did not develop anything. As a matter of fact, the humans that migrated to Eurasia during this time thrived during the Ice age and developed quite well. So the so called "easy mode" was only done trough sheer intelligence and persistence
It's taboo to say today, but in nature the stronger and more intelligent survive and saying that a race or culture are weaker is a sin in modern times. It's clear that those that stayed in Sub Saharan Africa were weaker mentally
It honestly funny how people didn't watch the video and start making up bs about it then then ignore other civilizations didn't invent the wheel etheir like the Aztecs or Mayans.
But are aztecs criminals?
@bartosz7706 Ghana is a black majority country with low homicides
We all know why.. 🙄
Clearly not otherwise this video wouldn't have been as successful as it is. Most people think that the wheel was invented like hundreds of thousands of years ago along with fire and spears. So if it's obvious to you then you're the exception.
Let us know, we would love to hear your racism!
Go on, tell us why.
Ah the wheel the Eurocentrics' main weapon to rebuttal African achievements whenever someone mentions the history of African state, Kingdom or empire south of the Sahara.
Little do they know as highlighted here most cultures adopted it and didn't actually invent it out of the blue even the Egyptians got it from elsewhere. Also as explained the geography plays a major factor.
Btw some scholars say it began North of Mesopatamia within the Eurasian Steppe region with the ancestors of the Indo Europeans who first domesticated horses. I'm not sure how true that is but, I know Mesopatamia is known as the place which has the first evidence of the wheel, from there as you noted it spread east into other regions like the Indus Valley.
Yeah it's crazy how simple-minded some people are "Africans never invented xxxxx." Europeans didn't invent the wheel, metallurgy, farming, or statebuilding. It was all brought to them by people elsewhere. There is nothing wrong with that but for some reason they have a problem with that being the case in Africa.
@@FromNothing Exactly that's how human societies work we learn from outside influence many times. This is exactly what I say. Europe was influenced by outside ideas and visa versa ofcourse. This doesn't take anything away from the history so why does it take away anything from the continent of Africa? Double standards some people have call them out on it they get defensive 😂.
@@odenoki9571 The sources have been posted on the fromnothing website in the description.
@@FromNothing Well, that explains why they try to selectively expand the definition of white sometimes to say the Near Easterners are White.
@@odenoki9571 Yeah, I kinda agree. Rolly thing doesn't seem that complex tho it seems that it takes more than inventing a circular disk to actually have a functional wheel and if it isn't functional in doing anything, it probably wouldn't have become popular.
I think a good follow up would be livestock native to Africa. We never hear much about farming, ranching, or herding... which is an integral part of society when building city-states and city based empires.
Yes...I would love to hear about that.
Subsaharan African are farmers & pastrolists, what are u talking about
Read Plantations in the Economy of the Sokoto Caliphate. It's about farming in the Sokoto Caliphate.
In the Zulu kingdom, cattle were a form of currency.
Considering how many pics of europeans being carried by humans there are in colonial Africa thats one example of why the wheel was not used it was extremely cumbersome to use wheeled vehicles for transport, i doubt Africans never knew if the wheel, we just did not see them as needed
I think people often forget that development is based on availability of resources as well as a cost benefit analysis wheels were not cheap in europe for the longest time not saying thats the main reason but Africans were probably not all that interested in something that offered little benefit
I watched the vid i was just making a statement, its similar to the argument of writing which ignores not only need but the fact that cultures are different The yoruba people used aroko as a form of long distance non audio communication for example, but outside of that Griots were obviously useful enough that few thought all that deeply about it
I was genuinely surprised the first time I found just how recent the invention of the wheel was.
I always thought it was way more ancient and way more prominent. Because well... It just seems so obvious.
It really go's to show that we a lot of things today or not so far back for granted. Humans have a really hard time imagining and comprehending things that we don't know the existence of. Things that seem obvious now, someone had to think about that without any basis first.
Videos like this really show us the depths of human enginuity, things aren't created in a vacuum, but through exchanges.
It’s ancient to almost every culture except sub Saharan Africa. In that case it’s modern.
@@billyb4790 Yeah let's just totally ignore North America, South America, Australia, large swaths of Northern Asia, and the whole of Polynesia and just single out Sub-Saharan Africa. Yeah that seems fine.
If the cultures of ancient Africa and the Americas had a long strip of land where it was easy to travel, you bet these cultures would have made use of the wheel. Lower Eurasia had trade routes/roads with similar times zones moving east to west across similar climates and topography along a flat land made it easy to trade and move goods in a path nearly 5,000 miles long which made it perfect for wheeled vehicles to evolve. The wheel was invented in Mesopotamia and the axle evolved in Egypt while suspension/cars and flight experiment began in China. Thx FN, this needs to be pointed out, there is nuances of why the wheel was used or not in ancient times.
The Americas had domesticated animals and domesticated crops
This is really great video! One thing I'd like to add is that the wheel may also have been less effective in the forest terrain of West and Central Africa. My reason for thinking this comes form the evidence you pointed out. You said that the wheel use in West Africa was almost completely ceremonial. My guess is that had the wheel been a practical form of transport in pre-industrial West Africa, than it would have been used for more than just ceremonies.
Wrong, they were primitive ppl.
Just like all they other great inventions from central Africa
It's amazing to see how humans use technology that works best for the places they live.
I had to deprogram myself. I feel like the way our educational system is in the US...they are not honest about this. Everything turns very racial. As a black person, I was always sad and confused about why it seemed like black people didn't invent anything useful. I felt like it was ingrained in us that we weren't smart or intelligent enough. No one taught things to us in this way (the way it is presented in this video).
@@lisacox3750 Oral records over written records is a reason why knowledge didn't grow as fast. The culture didn't face any new challenges to develop further.
I always say, inventing is not a culture. It's the result of people seeing problems in society or nature and trying to solve them.
The wheel works great every where in the world.
@@markwhite8332 No it doesn't
It is facinating to learn how rarely used was the wheel in west african while in east africa carts warfare was the main military force of that time.
Yep probably a lot to do with climate and trade links
@@skp8748You're beating around the bush.
@@oitthegroit1297 lol what do you want me to say bro 😂
The Tsetse fly is an insect that infects and kills horses, making them rare or non existent in certain regions. If you look up their distribution, you'd find they they are almost exclusively found in the western, central and southeastern regions of Africa. No horses in those regions, no carts, no wheel.
So they make fun of our “round mud huts” cause they don’t abide by the square shaped European favoritism in architecture, yet claim we never invented the wheel…
I think that's quite a bit different 😂
@@FromNothing I know I was just being a toxic hotep lol
@@odenoki9571 I take it you didn't watch the video.
WEaee wuuuuzzz kiiingzzz n shieeeeeeeeeeeeetettetttttttt
@@DionysiosPhryx Very funny you troll. Learn the difference between Afrocentrism’s and people that are really interested in African History. Piss off.
It's funny how some people say "but what about wheelbarrows?" when the wheelbarrow was only definitively invented ONCE in China in 231 AD (it might has been a bit ealier). It then took about a thousand years for the technology to spread to Medieval Europe. It's treated as some kind of obvious and primitive application, but the evidence doesn't support that at all. Especially considering it took the Chinese over 2000 years after the wheel to make the connection. Wheels and all their various applications are clearly more advanced and situational than many of us realize.
I found your channel a week ago, I thought at first it’s was an Afrocentric ( I don’t use this term I prefer use blackcentric because it’s claim an random civilisation as black civilisation not africain ), but it’s wasn’t ! You’re channel are in my top 5 fav history channel and i am really grateful that I can finally learn history of others civilisation in Africa a without political view. And I really like the moors video I don’t know why people claiming Moors as an ETHNIC GROUP lol
Africa it’s such an underrated continent sadly but in my heart it’s the most beautiful and more diverse than others continent 😔
BTW I an North African ✨
Excellent video. 7:21 , another rare example would be the “Forowa” Treasure box used by the Ashanti.
It was a wheeled treasure box containing the emperors riches.
Yes I showed the forowa at the end of the video 😀
@@FromNothing Ahhh gotcha ! I was listening to the audio so I didn’t see the image at first.
Solid work once again
What about the West African heddle pulleys used in looms? Would these qualify as wheel technology and is there any information on their history?
I wondered the same thing. Haven't dug down that research rabbithole yet though.
From what I’ve learnt, even places that were very familiar with the wheel and were unsuitable for camels like Europe and East Asia did not prefer wheel transport and primarily used river systems and pack animals.
Any findings on wheelbarrows? This seems like it would have been a valuable device even without animal domestication
Somalis had carts and wheelbarrows and they have the largest population of camels in the world so this video is using central/west Africa to denote ALL of Africa.. Egyptians had chariots
@@skp8748 bantus introduced iron in Africa while somalis were still in stone age
@@samanth. Introduced to africa 😆 Egypt was smelting first all while having documented trade ties with somalia... So there goes that theory
@@skp8748 that's just an Egyptian legend, the land of punt was mystical to ancient Egyptians
@@samanth. mystical but yet there's archaeological evidence for trade from mycenean pottery found in somalia to the goods founding by excavations in Egypt...
Myth you know 😆
Thanks for this. The more I learn about history, the more subjective the concepts of "civilised" and "developed" seem to become.
I have had to deprogram myself too. In the US it is ingrained in us what "civilized" and "developed" is and it is always associated with either European or Asian societies. It made me feel like as a black American that we just weren't intelligent enough. I am learning too. It's a process to de-program yourself.
@@lisacox3750 it's a process but it's worth it!
Well spelling civilized correct could be a good start... "Civilised" 🤣😂
@@centroid518 This is a colour vs color thing. Outside of North America, it is spelled civilised.
it is indeed subjective , take the romans and greeks for example . they pretty much considered everyone who wasn't them as barbarians even eachother lmao, I'm a descendant of both btw.
I knew a little bit of this but still learned a lot! It never even occurred to me that camels by themselves would be more efficient than wheels. We all have to unlearn the idea that technology always progresses a certain way.
Somalia has the most camels on earth and still developed the wheel... They had carts in city states according to Herodotus
What do camels have to do with Bantu tribes?
Camels are not more efficient than wheels 😂😂😂 omg what a comment. It takes years of feeding a camel to get it strong enough to carry a load, and even then the camel will only work when it wants to, they’re not obedient like horses Bc horses have an alpha, once the alpha horse is tamed the entire pack will be obedient. Very naive and innocent of u
@@yourfinalhiringagency3890 it’s a moot point anyhow, since camels weren’t used by sub saharans.
@@billyb4790 VERY TRUE 🤣
Some interesting theories, but unfortunately also quite deficient and flawed. First of all, let's clarify a few misconceptions. The wheel was invented or known to almost all ancient cultures of the world. And how could it not? It was a simple adaptation of a basic circle. Not all cultures, however, implemented the wheel as a means of transport, and I think this is what most people mean when they say such and such a people never "invented the wheel". Of course they did, they just didn't employ it for transport. This is evidenced by archeological evidence from all over the world. Every culture has artefacts, dishes and toys shaped in the form of wheels and circles. Why did some cultures however, never go one step further and use the wheel as a transport mechanism?
The answer is simple: the animal required to pull wheel-based carts and chariots, the domesticated horse, was native mostly to the Eurasia continent. The domesticated horse was unknown in both American continents, which explains why Mesoamerican societies never implemented the wheel as a transport solution. The only domesticated animal available to them for this purpose would have been the alpaca, and as they are much smaller and weaker than domesticated horses, they were entirely unsuitable to pulling heavy loads. So the wheel was confined to children's toys and plates and other utensils in Mesoamerica. The domesticated horse was first introduced to the Americas with the arrival of the Spaniards in the 16th century.
The horse is likewise not native to Sub-Saharan Africa, which is why it would have never occurred to the population of this continent to build horse-drawn carts and chariots. The only species of horse in Sub-Saharan Africa is the zebra, which is NOTORIOUSLY aggressive and untamable. Man has tried for centuries to tame and domesticate the zebra, but it has violently resisted all human attempts at domestication. As a matter of fact, the mortality rate of humans killed by zebras in Africa is alarming high - for example much higher than lions and other predators. In short, in the history of mankind no zebra has ever been successfully domesticated, which is why the wheel was never used for transport in Sub-Saharan Africa. Another reason often overlooked is that Sub-Saharan Africa has an almost complete lack of navigable rivers. Most rivers on the continent are either too narrow or shallow for ships, and of the few deep rivers that exist, they are either only full during the rainy season (and then dry up thereafter), or they feed into waterfalls. Without navigable rivers there's no need to manufacture goods for trade, which means no need to invent ships to transport those goods, which means no need to invent horse-drawn carriages to transport those goods to ships, which means no need to repurpose the wheel as a transportation device. The third reason for the lack of wheel is that Sub-Saharan Africa also lacks suitable natural harbors. Although surrounded by water, most of the harbors in Sub-Saharan Africa are too shallow to accommodate ships, therefore no need for horses to transport goods to the harbor for trade. This is coincidentally why slave ships during the Atlantic Slave Trade had to dock a few miles out at sea and then transport their human cargo via small boats to and from the coast. This is also why Sub-Saharan Africans never progressed to become developed, seafaring and technologically advanced major world powers like the Europeans or Asians - they had no domesticated horses, no navigable rivers and no deep-water harbors to accommodate ships. No ships means no trade with the outside world. No trade with the outside world means no technological development. No technological development means you're a sitting duck at the mercy of other technologically superior civilizations. This is also why Africa had no choice but to specialize in the export of high value commodities like gold, ivory and slaves. It was their only feasible home-grown industry, and the only goods they had to trade in exchange for goods from other continents. This is why Sub-Sahara Africa became such a specialist in the export of slaves for well over a thousand years. When the Europeans approached Africa in the 15th century to purchase slaves, they already found a thriving slave trade network, with well established logistic support and middle men capable of procuring slaves to meet every demand. This African slave industry had already been operating for centuries supplying the various Indian empires, the Persian Empire, the various Arab Empires as well as the Ottoman Empire with slaves.
So wheel barrows are not useful at all?
@@hulahula6182 Yes, but only to a very limited extent. Humans aren't capable of pushing heavy loads in a wheel barrow for hundreds of miles. A horse, in contrast, is fully capable of pulling heavy loads for hundreds of miles. That's why they were used for thousands of years in Europe, Asia and the Middle East to transport people via horse-drawn carriages or as beasts of burden to transport crops and other wares for sale across entire continents. This was completely lacking in Sub-Sahara Africa and on the two American continents due to their lack of horses.
@@CurtisCT buddy, if pushing load with a wheelbarrow is too much work, wouldnt hand carrying the load be much worse?
Also, Africa has elephants, no? Ottomans tamed elephants for war, europeans tamed elephants for circus, thailand people tamed them to clear woods, yet africans can't?
@@hulahula6182 I don't understand the point you're trying to make with wheelbarrows. I pointed out that yes, humans are capable of pushing a wheelbarrow, but not for heavy loads over long distances. This would make it very impractical to transport goods for trade from the interior of the African continent to the coast, for example. A single horse, by contrast, is capable of transporting a much heavier load and over much longer distances, which is why they were utilized for thousands of years in Eurasia and the Middle East as beasts of burden.
Re elephants, they can be tamed, but not domesticated - there's a very important difference. Taming an animal entails capturing it from the wild and training it to carry out a specific task. When that animal dies however, you have to start all over again from the beginning with a new animal taken from the wild. Domestication involves controlling and manipulating the reproductive capabilities of an animal to serve human interests. We've been very successful at domesticating goats, sheep, horses, cows, pigs, chickens, cats, dogs, etc. This involved capturing them from the wild and then subjecting them to an intense selection and breeding process over thousands of years to produce docile animals with desirable traits, e.g. bulky bodies for meat consumption in the case of cows and chickens, increased muscles for carrying weight in the case of horses or increased wool production for making clothes in the case of sheep. This is not possible with elephants on account of their vast size and very prodigious food requirements. This is why in the entire history of humans, we've only managed to tame elephants but never domesticate them.
@@CurtisCT
👩🏾💼
but, wait. aren't there certain types of indigenous cattle even stronger than horses that could've been used? maybe not for riding, but definitely for plowing and transport of heavy goods. the wheel would've been extremely useful to make whatever burden much easier on the beast, thus maximizing it's longevity .
why wasn't the wheel used that way?
I don't think Sub-Saharan Africa would have even had the skill set to build a wheel never mind invent it.
They built wheels in large numbers after adopting them
But somehow they defeated British army with just spears & shield, the whites never invented the wheel
@@samanth. lol whites conquired africa and divided among themselves
What about the wheel objects discovered in medieval West and Central African archaeological sites, which were used in weaving?
Comments like these significantly reduce my hopes that humanity can live without seething at other because of their skin tone.
You say some facts but I feel like you over simply some things and neglect to say other things.
1. The wheel was an expensive way of traveling in both Europe and south east aisia, which means it was mostly only done when the journey was short or a large cumbersome army was involved. Which means they used rivers to transport as close to their destination as possible only using the wheel when it was necessary.
2. Camels weren't only used in North Africa and the Middle East it was also preferred in North India.
3. Odds are Africans knew about the wheel simply because they weren't fully cut off from the whole world. Africa sub Sahara has been trading with aisians and Europeans so odds are someone would have seen or at least heard about.
4. The wheel wasn't use full in sandy areas because camles were better and Europeans didn't use camales because off the cold.
5. One could argue the same for Africans, places with the (can't write the name) fly was common it meant that live stock was difficult the keep so they simply didn't have something strong to pull the weight.
6. So what about places in Africa the fly wasn't around in those places one could argue that most of which they needed to transport had legs of their own and in that case the wheel was simply redundant.
To sum up:
No Africans weren't primitive they simply used what worked best in their climate and conditions.
And the wheel simply wasn't a transport of choice until mutch later in history.
Thank you.
This lump of information is learnt over the chores of my short yet fun life so don't have sources close at hand but if you do your research it simply can't be hard someone who might be more reliable then me some person on Internet who surprisingly is making one of his first comments.
Have a great day.
Sorry If I had some spelling errors or grammar fault writing on a messed up phone bad eyesight and no sleep.
Cheers
You forgot the Ethiopian elephant carriages
Other cultures that never invented the wheel include: American Indians, Aztecs, Incans, Polynesians, Australians, etc.
No wonder most of them are exctinct
No, that's because of disease. That's why most Africans aren't extinct despite lack of the wheel. Not sure how or why you think a wheel has anything to do with extinction.
The Wheel is to make it easier to haul heavy loads. Most African and American animals are unsuited to domestication so without domestic horse or oxen, no carts and no carts, no wheel.
Africa DID have cattle so should have had the wheel.
It's simple, the invention of the wheel, as simple and ridiculous as it may sound, was just invented once and then spread to the known civilizations. Something so simple, just couldn't get through people's head that it could become so usefull.
They were much too busy hunting ceiling birds, and then prepping them for dinner by washing them in bleach.
The aztec never invented wheels
You can’t farm the land Efficiently without the wheel. If you never learned the wheel, those people are still hunter-gathers
So the Inca Empire was a hunter-gatherer society? Ancient Egypt as well? What about the Aztec and Maya? Also hunter-gatherers? I'll answer that for you, no that wasn't the case at all and your statement about the wheel being required for not being "hunter-gatherer" is just painfully false.
🤣🤣🤣 just coz u dropped out of school doesn't mean u have to force your stupidity on us, the African was a farmer, that's the basic subsaharan culture, the hunter & gatherer were so few, please read some books coz your ignorance is showing
Blacks sure are making up for it though with their blingy $4000 rims (usually attached to $1000 cars).
Indeed, all of us blacks just go out and buy $4000 rims on beat up cars and we're all doing it because our ancestors didn't use the wheel. This guy has it all figured out. I should probably discard my $25,000 car with stock rims and follow the trend huh?
@@FromNothing You know it's true. No need to get so triggered, fella.
@@JohnJones-oy3md When did I seem triggered. I agreed with your impeccable logic.
@@FromNothing I'm glad that you came around. Top bloke. 👍
You should write books because of how damn impressive your logic is.
Arians had wheeled chariots when they invaded India from the northern parts of the Central Asia
Sheeeit we wuz kangz we ain’t need no wheels cuh sheeit
This is coming from someone who has the name of some 12 year old trying to become a corny Minecraft youtuber from 2016. This is hilarious
@@juord he won't shoplift
@@juordThe exact same thing could be spun around about your account.
@@juordWundurwaffle is his ancestral nayme, stop tha racism he trynna conserve hes heritage!
@@Saint-hamudiYou sound so cringe, hamudi, it's funny how other minorities will look down on the black man, yet the white man is still out here persecuting your people on the streets and you fail to react to that.
Rolling stuff on logs is the same as a wheel
Come on
I love your channel and how you don't mention egypt at all!
I think you should make a video on the Kushite Empire. I understand you might be shying away from it out of fear of being called an afro-centrist as it was related to the kingdom of egypt in some way but trust me the Kushites were definitely Sub-saharan africans who were very distinct genetically to egyptians for the most part. In pre-dynastic egypt and early dynastic egypt, there were some genetic similarties between the two but if you have your doubts don't worry, the Kushites were most defnitely Black Sub-saharan Africans. They had established a powerful kingdom south of egypt and in fact they developed major cities and centralised forms of government before the creation of ancient egypt. The Kushites had even conquered egypt at some point in history and successfully fought off the romans when the egyptians failed. So much black history to talk about and I think it would provide you with a plethora of content for years. Kushite history is definitely up there with the peak of what Africa has to offer. I'd love to see my peoples achievments acknowledged for their contribution to Black history.
Thanks for the love. I'm well aware of the Nubians. I've mentioned them in videos from time to time but the Nile Valley civilizations as a whole receive much more attention than the rest of Sub-Saharan African history. That's why I shy away from that region. Not that I won't talk about them at all, just not in my priorities.
@@FromNothing Ah that makes a lot of sense then, continue doing what you do man.
A lot of the ancient Egyptians where Sub-saharan africans as well. Black people started the civilization but 'white' population increased over time.
@@some1350 yesss that is actually quite true. If you look at culture and artefacts from pre dynastic egypt there are ALOT of similarities to modern day nilotic culture in the great lakes region of africa and there are also identical aspects of pre dynastic egyptian culture that match Nubian culture to the south. Its evident that the first egyptians must have been new settlers in the region of nubia who had migrated north down the nile and settled where egypt was. The very first egyptians were definitely Sub-saharan africans but sadly their presence drastically decreased after the migrations from the levant and egypt lost its Sub-saharan identity within a couple of centuries.
@@cloroxbleach9237 There have always been a lot of black people in ancient egypt. We know that the Kush dynasty was a black dynasty and the ancient Egyptians mixed with Nubians.
While for now it is assumed that the wheel was developed in Mesopotamia (as David Anthony states in Horse Wheel and language)
The earliest depiction of the wheel anywhere in the world is the Bronocice cup from what is now Poland. The engraving clearly shows a 4 wheeled vehicle. There is also a wheel track in Germany dating from almost the same time. Wheeled wagons or carts really make sense for pastoral people in grasslands like the Pontic Caspian region. There is a period when settlements are mainly in river valleys are suddenly mobile and move around.
This allows greater pasture for their animals and horse riding also allows larger herds.
The interesting thing is when the wheel appeared it spread very rapidly in Europe and Asia within a couple hundred years. The exception was Egypt. Since Egypt primarily used river based transport up and down the Nile it wasn't needed as much. Egypt during the first dark age in the late 1600s BC was invaded by the chariot riding people called the Hyksos. The chariot was most certainly invented in central asia (Sintashta) etc and that is the technology that spread to the middle east.
Essentially there has to be a need for something but also a level of metallurgy and carpentry to be able to make wheels, axles etc. for it to appear.
@yousifboti look up the Bronocice cup.
@yousifboti False, central asia. Sintashta culture.
@yousifboti sure Britannica? four wheel wagons with solid wheels are not chariots.
Read David Anthony's book Horse Wheel and Language.
So basically, they probably have invented the wheel at some point, but they just sunk into the sand so they just went like "Camels are faster if they don't have to pull these carts that get stuck all the time".
IQ levels don't lie.
Some of the "researchers" and methods used to obtain the scores do.
Irony from someone using IQ as an argument
See the methodology of the IQ studies. Using impoverished orphaned children and extremely dubious methods to arrive at those numbers. Extreme travesty of science and psychology.
What does this have anything to do with the video?
The IQ levels are correct, the studies are sound and this is the main contributing reason for it
I think the idea that Nupe adopted the wheel is like likely than independent discovery cuz, well, their neighbours should have had it as well if they adopted it.
Sadly some of the loud voices of "all history was black" made me unsure what to expect from this video. I was pleasently surprised. Okay, surprised might be a bit of a strong word. But I found this video interesting and well researched. Thank you for your effort.
Everyone across the world got the idea of the wheel . In most places its pretty useless . Except for local transport .
Nope it was used for mills and weaving as well as pulleys in both east and north Africa
No wheels, because: tsetse fly. It makes perfect sense, when you know it, but is a complete and utter mystery, when you don't. It's one of those connections that illustrate how complex the World is, and what a tremendous undertaking it is to try and understand it.
From what I know, the spoked wheel was invented around the south Urals, among the Proto-Indo-European speaking tribes (e.g. Corded Ware, Yamnaya, Sintashta cultures), who promptly used it to make war chariots, which they promptly "introduced" to the peoples of Europe and the Middle East, all the way to India. Very "generous" of them. Anyway, it caught on, wherever there were horses and flat ground, and, before anyone knew what had happened, people were killing each other with much greater speed and efficiency than before. In fairness, there were other uses of the wheel, those uses just didn't travel quite as fast. It may have been independently invented, but once is plenty to explain how it would become ubiquitous in most of the World.
Edit: Typo.
But Africa is not a monolith
@@skp8748 Of course not, and parts of Africa are famous for their use of both horses and wheels.
@@erikjrn4080 exactly doesnt make sense Somalia has the largest population of camels which is where it was first domesticated and they STILL developed the wheel even Herodotus noted their use of carts in places like Opone
@@skp8748 Camels require a very particular environment. So do horses. Donkeys are maybe the most versatile, but even they have requirements. It's been a while since I saw this video, but, unless I'm much mistaken, what we're talking about here, are regions where neither would thrive.
@@skp8748 Herodotus never spoke about Somalia, punt was in Djibouti & not somalia, somalis used stone & bronze tools until bantus introduced iron, west Africa had great empires compared to just a small insignificant kingdom
Maybe you can make a 2 second video on what sub Sahara Africans did invent.
African had iron or metal working independently unlike the Philippines were you are from
@@midnighttrucker19 Still stone age without contact
Pre colonial filipinos achived far less than pre colonial africans, yet i dont see any far right youtuber pointing out that fact and calling your people subhuman..... beacuse no one is subhuman and racism is stupid
the wheel is evolved from the geometric circle also the circle found in nature (moon ,sun, mud ball, flat round rock, bead , neckless, the eye pupil ,turning around, clay pot,) the only way to escape the circle is to ignore it.
They began using the wheel after gaining them suggesting otherwise
I find it funny how people still comment about how African lacking wheel technology as some sort of gacha when others people didn't have wheels ethier like native Americans and polysians for the same reasons of their terrains not being viable for road building compared to eurasia.
I find it funny how the No Wheel peoples show up next to each other in crime statistics.
@@skurt9109 maybe the war on drugs caused it
Europeans never invented the wheel ether
I know that, but people like him need the content and never did the actual research like going there themselves. P.s. some of the research that he uses is European research.
Romans are infantry based. Red men probably refers to Berbers or some other SSA nomadic group who wore red clothing
Europeans, on the other hand, made use of wheels very heavily once they were introduced. (Especially sub-Saharan) Africans seem not to have until they were colonized.
@@J-Ton wheels were not logistically viable in SSA though, even in the Middle East camels without wheels were preferred and africas terrain made the use of wheels not as important which is why Europeans even stopped using wheels much when in the continent. It all comes down to the role a wheel plays within a society and environment (desieases and fauna also effect horses) and in non Eurasian environment’s horses were more of a detriment and just not as necessary as manpower, only Exception to this being North America
They never actually *independently* invented anything hahah
It's weird how inventions progress. Like, the chariot predates the saddle, and pockets are a shockingly recent invention
So the wheel really becomes a huge advancement in a society that is engineering projects, producing enough agriculture that requires practical transportation and then that part of Africa with just the number of languages even in small areas it shows to disconnect in small scale
Societies that existed. Because of the climate Africans tend to live hand to mouth I’m so large scale production of food wasn’t really essential. We see the same thing with the American Indian.
What you're are saying describes specific areas of Africa, not the norm. Do not generalise, Africa is the 2nd largest continent after all. Large scale agriculture in Sub Saharan Africa was very common in the Sahel, Non-Coastal West Africa, Central, East Africa and parts of Southern Africa like areas where the Bakoni inhabited. There was also an agricultural revolution in West/Central Africa shortly within the same period of the agric revolution in pre bronze age middle East. Agriculture was independly developed in this region on a large scale circa 2K BC, driven by states like the Kintampo Complex, Sao Civilization, Dia and Tchitt Walatta.
@@Niani23455 Your right the continent of Africa is huge but lets focus on sub Saharan.
When was the first printing press made?
Or the first blast furnace?
@@59Gretsch "First blast furnace?"
No specific answer but I do know that metallurgical furnaces across West Africa date to the BC era. For instance, furnaces from the Nok of Nigeria date to the 7th or 6th centuries BC.
"First printing press?"
The printing press came in late because sub Saharan Africa was isolated from Eurasia.
@@Niani23455 If all this metallurgy was going on, why could foreign traders wield such influence with simple metal items?
Read up on China's big effort at building smelting production all across china under Communism. Huge failure, millions died. Doing metal is not easy. Go on TH-cam and see people try in their backyard with all the modern help.
@@59Gretsch "If all this metallurgy was going on, why could foreign traders wield such influence on simple metals?"
In what context are you speaking, past or present? There were states in pre colonial Africa that had good metallurgy. Ancient (BC era) Tanzanians could smelt carbon steel. Iron/bronze metallurgy was very prominent across West, Sahel and Central Africa. Places like Benin Kingdom used the lost wax method for their bronze statues or as the Akan did for their goldweights. There is scholarly debate that it is possible these African kingdoms/empires jumped straight to an iron age without going through a bronze age.
"Red men from the north"at about 9 minutes into the video sounds like Roman soldiers.
There were several expeditions.
But that was through the Nile not the Sahara
Wheels, spinners, rounders, circlers, ovalers, and or rollers not every society felt the usage or the kind of compunction to make such things yeah
People didnt feel the need for smartphones to surf internet too, yet now everyone's using it. "Didnt feel the need" is just excuse for their short-sightedness
@@hulahula6182 "yet now everyone uses it" no one was using smartphones 500 years and actually your analogy further proves the point that the wheel was not needed up until now. Calling Africans "short-sighted" for utilizing other efficient methods of transportation is extremely bigoted.
@@cavaugnsharkey2699 HAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHH is this the kind of wisdom that led to the rise of wakanda?
@@hulahula6182 Wisdom? Do you even know what kind of words you're using? And Wakanda is a fictional country-try using real countries if you can even name them. Is this suppose to be the pinnacle of white supremacy? If so, then all hope is truly lost for the white race. Do better.
@@cavaugnsharkey2699 buddy, u said wheels aren't important for civilization advancement 😂😂 wheels are literally the fundamentals of successful budding civilizations, yet you think they are " unnecessary" HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAH no long term thinking whatsoever, no wonder HAHAHAHAH
There's a difference between inventing, learning and using it.
The thing is that they never used it for much, probably because wheels aren't that useful without roads and there's limitations to this day in road construction.
I'd wager that the wheel has been invented several times independently, it's just that it's not that useful without the right environment to use it without roads.
And then it was shared even more times. But there's a reason why we don't go around on roller skaters everywhere.
What's with all these people acting like wheels don't work without roads 😂😂
@@manz7860 Try to ride your car in the beach, or bicycle, I double dare you.
@@lloydgush I used to ride my bike to the beach with a dog stroller/trailer in tow....when I would get there I would lock the bikes up, let my dog out and use the trailer to help me rolll the stuff down to the beach......
So uhhh. Wheels work fine in sand. If your wheels sinking into the sand. You need to spread out the weight
@@manz7860 "You just need bigger wheels, dude", eventually a cammel is a better option. And that's with modern technology, no rubber thick light wheels.
Never really understood why some Eurocentrics even see the wheel as like the pinnacle of civilizations anyway you can still be advanced without wheels
The wheel is fundamental for most forms of advanced mechanics, which, for thousands of years, was identical with "technology". Without wheels, there can be no windmills, clocks, steam engines, pulleys, etc.. Most moving parts rely on wheels and circular motion, in some way or other. Even electricity requires wheels to be generated (in large amounts). That makes it a necessity for _technologically_ advanced civilization, which, of course, is very different from _advanced civilization._ Architecture, math, literacy, medicine, government, economy, philosophy... The list of possible advancements that aren't technological is very long.
yes, and the answer to your question is in your comment. The issue is thae Eurocentrics at some point "decided" what the "pinnacle of civilization" was supposed to be. So, everyone else got judged by their barometer. That's the issue!
Are mud huts advanced architecture?
@@hulahula6182 Clearly, when you premise it as "huts", the answer must be 'no'. Huts can't be "advanced architecture", no matter what they're made from. Huts are always small, pragmatic, unassuming structures.
However, mud can and has been used in advanced architecture. Very large and complex structures have been made, using clay and straw as the primary materials. That's the same technology as "mud huts". Some of these structures have stood for thousands of years. Some are still being used. Look up the Great Mosque of Djenné, for an advanced "mud hut".
@@lisacox3750 trains, automobiles, etc are more advanced than back carried stretchers
Explain the bell curve IQ test score results of Africans
If you even bothered watching the entire video, I find it concerning and baffling that even after watching it, being aware of the complexity of the topic, and also covering the fact that the wheel was absent in North America, South America, Australia, Polynesia, and most (but not all) of Africa, basically the majority of the WORLD, and that it was only ever VERY RECENTLY was invented once or twice and the rest of its use and adoption spread through trade, migration, and warfare, and the role that the camel played in hindering its spread yet your only response is about the bell curve. Seems a little bigoted don't you think?
@@FromNothing bigoted? Maybe. I consider myself a realist on racial issues. Diversity is not our greatest strength. You people are being used as a weapon.
@@Whatsahandle4
Are the Ukranians and Russians killing each other also being used as weapons?
No more brother wars. Am I right?
The bell curve has been debunked by scientists (geneticists, neuroscientists, evolutionary biologists, etc) for decades lol
Anyways what does it have anything to do with the video whatsoever?
@@phiteb it's proven when those primitives deny their inferior African origins and now proudly claim to be indigenous to the Americas. Proof the New World cultures are superior to Sub-Saharan cultures.
Couldn't africans domesticate the zebra and use it instead of horses?
No. Zebras are wild and aggressive. They are more responsible for injuries to zookeepers than any other animal.
@@FromNothing wild horses and donkeys are also aggressive though. That's the purpose of domestication.
@@FromNothing i doubt it would be an easy task to achieve. I've worked with horses and breaking a horse can be a long and complicated procedure, even if they're not wild animals, there's always that instinct present.
Zebras are notoriously more aggressive, dangerous, and easily spooked than even wild horses. Europeans tried and failed to domesticate the zebra too. Only very limited instances of taming (not domesticating) were successful.
Wheels, so primitive we still use them to this very day.
what about bowls? are they also complex?
many people still use banana leaves as plates, is it also complex?
@@pxpq Yes, bowls are complex, as are wheels, and fire. He does a good explanation of why wheels were not used, but to call them primitive is just plain silly. I'm not aware of any animals using wheels, or fire. By today's standards these things do seem simple, but we don't get where we're at without these things.
@@mikeekim242 Based on your comment I assume you didn't watch any more than 23 seconds of the video. If you made it past that part then you would know that it was sarcasm. So maybe before you go calling me silly, you should check your own silliness which comes in the form of judging the video without even watching it.
@@FromNothing Sorry, didn't see the sarcasm in it, but I'll take your word for it, I can't read minds. Did I get anything else wrong?
@@mikeekim242 Lmao, there is no mind reading needed. You literally just watch the video. I sarcastically say it and then IMMEDIATELY afterwards I mention that it is completely untrue and that the wheel is highly specialized. Seriously dude, don't make this about me, it's about you not watching the video. That is literally the only issue here.
Its all so tiresome
Beavers all make dams but don't tell each other. Some things are just bound to be worked out.
they had them just not everywhere.
Enjoy the content & continue the passion.
Which video editor program do you use?
Sony Vegas Pro
@@FromNothing Thank you.
Why wouldn’t the wheel be useful? Do they not use wheels in africa today?
Because the landscape didn't allow it
@@tompossessed1729 so they don’t use wheels today?
@@asabovesobelow3023 That such a stupid metric
@@tompossessed1729 why? Did the landscape change?
@@asabovesobelow3023 Obviously it did so maybe African adoption of the wheel took longer due to the landscape changes over time. Technology is not universally useful for every circumstances
WTF is up with everyone talking about African and the Wheel?... if you have what you need, and life is good, you don't envision better... where and WHY was the wheel developed? What was the first purpose of the wheel in each culture that implemented it? Possibly because heavy items needed to be transported over large distances... did the Zulu need this or were then basically regional in their logistics? Many cultures didn't "invent" the wheel... No one in the entire American Continents or most of the Pacific Islanders or Australia developed the wheel...
Maybe try actually watching the video.
"They were too stupid to have invented guns."
-Trevor Moore
Only the Chinese can be credited as having invented gunpowder and all its associated weapons.
well guns are a lot more advanced than this
WE wuzzz kingzzz n shieeeeetttt
The most unique, creative, and relevant comment that I have ever seen. WOW
@@FromNothing Don't worry, it looks like the return of the one we enjoy laughing at - Mr Bigot
Wheels? USELESS
Back to tossing rocks
wow… someone’s in denial.
Well technically they were
We are Global Indigenous people!! Love and Unity is the best key for us all together!!💯 Also Giving thanks to the Great Mother's/Goddesses and Great Father's/Gods and the Ancestors and Guardians!! Saying from Snefer aka Bashiyr!!👸🏿🤴🏿
Somalia had the wheel 300bc
@@skp8748 🤣🤣🤣
@@samanth. damn arguing basic geographical realities that allowed for the use of the wheel... that's new buy you know what's not? The carts and water wheels used as early as 300bce in somalia first invented in sumeria in 3500bce used in Africa first by Egypt who were engaged in chariot warfare from at least 1350BCE...
The wheel isn't really a trump card anyhow most of subsaharan africa isn't geographically conducive to wheeled contraptions. Whereas the east not only had contact with its inventors but didn't have to deal with dense forestry or the vast swathes of arable land while excellent for farming made wheel useless due to mud from rainfall.
As for you laughing imma assume you did consider it an embarrassment when the Europeans came and couldn't believe you didn't even have the wheel (which BTW isn't really true)
Very interesting, great work
For the same reason that there's never been a world chess champion of sub-Saharan African descent and without exception anywhere those of sub-Saharan African descent are clustered from Africa to US inner cities is a craphole.
Says the guy that clearly didn't even watch the video.
@@FromNothing I bet you think Henry "Ibram X. Kendi" Rogers is a brilliant, insightful guy doing great things.
@@obbzerver That's right, start making assumptions and throwing insults instead of actually watching the video and having a logical discussion. Good stuff man.
@@FromNothing I did watch it - North Africa was totally different than sub-Saharan Africa. Sub-Saharans learned about the wheel from others, they didn't come up with it on their own.
@obbzerver Based on that comment alone, you clearly didn't watch it otherwise you're being wilfully ignorant.
and heres an add for kratom, a borderline opiate 😂
Yep and I've been using it for 2 years nos and never been better!
Wheels are not used unless horses are available, too.
Nope, simple pulleys use wheels, and meso Americans invented the wheel before horses were on the continent, also Africa had many horses.
@Your Final Hiring Agency you are forgetting about tsetse flies and their trypanosome parasites. Large areas of Africa can not have horses because of those parasites.
I don’t understand the wheel had to be invited and prehistoric times look at the Flintstones
What's an idiotic premise. We could also say why Europeans never invented the wheel . Wow!
Funny how Europeans themselves never invented the wheel & just adopted it from Romans empire
Why are we flexing over something that's specialized?
like seriously, wtf are you going to do with wheels without paved/reasonably flat roads?
And the Roman empire are European. Your point
You're trying too hard, Samantha. The people of Sub-Saharan Africa invented *nothing*. The people of North Africa, however, are a different creed of African. So you don't get to piggyback their many achievements.
@@motherflange so what did north Africans achieve?
@@samanth. Morocco; Algeria; Tunis; Libya; Egypt all share the shoreline of the Mediterranean (along with Europe and the Middle East) where trading and knowledge led to North Africa acquiring democracy; government; science; mathematics; astronomy; crop irrigation; metallurgy; ship building; medicine, etc. International trade routes allowed N. Africa to flourish for over one thousand years, while Sub-Saharan Africa remained unenlightened. Only Northern Sudan can boast such superb architecture -- though note which N. African country it shares its border with. However, N. Africa was late with the introduction of the wheel (chariot wheel & water wheel) and some metal work. Additionally, the ancient people of North Africa -- more so the ancient Egyptians -- were genetically aligned with the Middle East (Iran) and Europe (Turkey) rather than Sub-Saharan Africans. Their ancient language belonged to the Semitic variety, and they possessed blonde and red hair -- hence ancient North Africans were *not* bláck.
So the answer is no..
The question was why not did
I read that it's a common misconception that the wheel was first invented in Mesopotamia. It was actually invented around where modern day Ukraine is.
😂
Animal mastication 😂
That is very good video! So, the camel killed its competition in Africa. Makes sense.
BTW, what is the music by 11-13 minutes? I have heard it somewhere and now it bugs me that I can't remember...
In the first 2 minutes you said believed and perhaps. Don't start with something unproven
Is this a reupload? This is what brung me to this channel years ago?
More like a remaster
Wheel
I love happy hippo!
Sub-saharan also do not invented writing script, mathematic, no scholar and scientist. no grand sophiscated architecture and monument that rival or comprable to europe, asia and mesoamerica. Great zimbabwe wall just bronze ages standard wall for europe like 'Grianan of Aileach, Dún Aonghasa and Doon Fort" nothing special. Do not made something do not exist and try to made equal and comprable to others great civilization, Australian aboriginal vs southeast asia and east asia and sub-saharan africa vs middle-east and europe is not great comparison.
I can only laugh at statements like this that produce lies & Foulness
The terrain not being favorable is not a good explanation at all. No where in the world is the terrain favorable. Civilizations had to create roads in order to facilitate the invention of the wheel because they saw the obvious benefit of it.
Exactly!
As if the rugged hilltops of Europe were conducive to the wheel more so than the flat plains of Africa.
@@midnighttrucker19 But again, the wheel wasn't invented in Europe lol. Especially not in any hilly environment.
No, it is a good argument when you account for where the wheels were invented. The wheels were generally invented in flat regions(relatively), not in mountainous regions.
And it is favorable in flat terrains blud, I don't know how you can deny that. Especially in regions like the steppes. Vehicles are used in places that have no roads, but regardless without the road we wouldn't have invented the vehicle because the road open the room of the vehicle to be conceived of, yet alone have been created. Do you see my point?
@@Pax-Islamica where was it invented
@@midnighttrucker19 Mesopotamia
I love this video
The wheel was invented at the same time as the boat
There's a tree trunk rolling in a river It kept floating That is the invention of the wheel and the boat It just needed a little bit of math A trait that Neanderthals had
Yet whites never invented the wheel, seems they lacked that neaderthal trait too
8:10 My God! We we're lied too this whole time! The bigots and the kangs we're wrong!
Turns out, it was the Native Americans who civilised the world!
Native Americans are not red
This is the biggest cope i have ever seen and something i would expect from a followers of Yakub.
Lol? How the hell is this a cope? Literally, everything in this is 100% true.
@@FromNothing He made the same comment on another video by a history professor saying the same thing. This bloke lacks the IQ to have any semblance of creativity.
So because the wheel was no terribly useful in the sandy northern parts, they places where it would be useful decided not to use it too.
Makes sense. ;)
Thought there'll be a mentione of sandsled.
Let's go!!!
You never invented boats either though. Pretty easy to invent a boat cuh. 🤷♂
Africans did aka east Africa
Canoes predate humans. Africans always had them. 😂
charriots existed in Kemet 🥱
@daniele.3361😂 what about Somalia ?. Or are they also a separate Gene pool.
I said "Sub-Saharan Africa with the exception of the horn." Somalia is located in the horn of Africa. Not sure how you missed that. 🤔
@@FromNothing bro I am on your side. I am mocking the other guy.
A TH-camr called lonerbox made a video on this
Kratom has helped alot get off worse.
Nice vid