[Aztlan] "The Maya had no Wheel...."

[Craig Berry]

On Mon, 14 Aug 2006, bertram perkel wrote:

> It is a basic tenet of the scientific method that the absence of
> proof can never support a hypothesis that anything exists or does not
> exist.

Absolutely.  But that's what makes the mesoamerican wheel such a puzzle.
If the wheel were utterly nonexistent in mesoamerica, that would be mildly
surprising but relatively easily explainable.  If it were in common use as
a practical tool (as evidenced by artistic depictions, or still better
actual wheeled artifacts or identifiable debris from such), that would
certainly be very easy for us to understand.

What makes this case so fascinating is that we have the 'toy' wheeled
artifacts -- which indisputably demonstrate that the idea of wheels and
axles was available to at least some mesoamerican cultures -- but no
evidence of its *ever* being exploited in any other way, despite the clear
utility of e.g. carts and wheelbarrows in performing many tasks we know
these people performed.

These cultures included demonstrably brilliant engineers and craftsmen who
eagerly incorporated countless technological refinements into common
practice.  So we're left with only two reasonable explanations:

1) Wheels *were* in common use, but left no archaeological traces (that
   we have found so far, anyway).

2) Wheels were not in common use due to some cultural or technological
   factor we have not yet discovered.

Either way, it's a fascinating puzzle.

--
   )   Craig Berry - http://www.cine.net/~cberry/
  =+=   "It's our differences (of which there are none) that make
   (   our sameness so exceptional!" - Principal Skinner, "The Simpsons"