I've been thinking

 

…about wheels.

 

Wheels are such an integral part of our technology.  Practically everything else had to wait until we conquered the wheel.

 

With several million years of evolution of several different species of hominids on this planet, we managed adaptations like walking upright, evolving digestive tracts that would accommodate a greater variety of food (becoming omnivores), bigger brains, language, art; and adopting, then creating, tools.  I was thinking about the tools all these different species of hominids used, and when they finally got to use the wheel.  The wheel is such a critical part of practically every technology today!

 

It’s not clear exactly when hominids diverged from apes.  Maybe 5 million years ago, or so, is a good estimate.  It wasn’t until 2.5 million years ago, give or take, until the earliest use of stone tools appeared.  This was way before our current species, homo sapiens; maybe in the time of the australopithicines in Africa; pre-humans; little primates that had diverged from apes, but weren’t entirely human yet.  (Interestingly, stone tools were developed long before we got bigger brains.)

 

800,000 years ago, fire.  It’s currently thought that early man got control of fire about then.  I don’t know if that’s technically a tool, but it certainly was an important development.

 

500,000 years ago, wooden tools and spears.

 

(200,000 years ago, our species, homo sapiens, first appeared.)

 

100,000 years ago, multi-part tools incorporating wood, bone, ivory, or antlers.  Spears with tips made out of more lethal materials than wood.  Now the pace is picking up.

 

26,000 years ago, weaved baskets.  Now we could carry stuff in something other than a bag made out of a goat’s stomach.

 

20,000 years ago, pottery.

 

5,000 years ago, the wheel.  I’m sure we were aware that round things were special, but the big breakthrough was the axle-wheel combination; the way to attach a wheel to a fixed object.

 

(Metals managed specifically for our own use, smelting and shaping tools and weapons, didn’t start to happen until about 5,000 years ago with the bronze age, about the same time as the wheel.)

 

So for all our human history, we’ve only had use of the wheel for the last five thousand years.  Everything up until then got carried or dragged.  In one sense, it has been a long time since we got the wheel; about 200 generations.  In another sense, five thousand years is just a tiny blip of time compared to the 200,000 generations from the time of our earliest ancestors before we made that breakthrough.