Why precolonial Africa didn't have the wheel

"The conventional notion that Africans failed to employ the wheel because of lack of initiative or intelligence is intellectually unsatisfactory, not so much because it is racialist as because it is circular: Africans are supposed to have ignored the wheel because they were unenterprising, and the evidence that they were unenterprising is that they failed to adopt the wheel."
---Robin Law, “Wheeled Transport in Pre-Colonial West Africa,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 50, no. 3 (1980), p. 257
0:00 Introduction
1:34 What's so special about wheels, anyway?
6:02 Why didn't Europe adopt the camel?
8:02 Trypanosomiasis and the tsetse
9:32 Arid areas of East and Southern Africa without the tsetse
10:30 Appeal to Africa specialists
11:08 Cigarettes and pennies
FOOTNOTES
[1] K. N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), p. 110
[2] W. T. Jackman, The Development of Transportation in Modern England, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916), vol. 1, p. 22
Edward Whiting Fox, History in Geographic Perspective: The Other France (New York: Norton, 1971), p. 34
William H. McNeill, “The Eccentricity of Wheels, or Eurasian Transportation in Historical Perspective,” American Historical Review, 92, no. 5 (December 1987), pp. 1111-13
For a somewhat contrasting view (that still shows water transport to be cheaper than land), see James Masschaele, “Transport Costs in Medieval England,” in The Economic History Review, 46, no. 2 (May 1993), pp. 266-79
[3] Jackman, The Development of Transportation in Modern England, pp. 8-9
[4] Jackman, The Development of Transportation in Modern England, p. 5
McNeill, “The Eccentricity of Wheels,” p. 1111
[5] McNeill, “The Eccentricity of Wheels,” pp. 1123-25
Yi-Rong Ann Hsu, Clifton W. Pannell, and James O. Wheeler, “The Development and Structure of Transportation Networks in Taiwan: 1600-1972,” in China’s Island Frontier: Studies in the Historical Geography of Taiwan, ed. Ronald G. Knapp (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1980), p. 165
Heather Sutherland, “Geography as Destiny? The Role of Water in Southeast Asian History,” in A World of Water: Rain, Rivers and Seas in Southeast Asian Histories, ed. Peter Boomgaard, Verhandelingen van Het Koninklijk Instituut Voor Taal-, Land- En Volkenkunde 240 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2007), pp. 27-70
For an overview of maritime trade in this region, see Ng Chin-keong, Boundaries and Beyond: China's Maritime Southeast in Late Imperial Times (Singapore: NUS Press, 2017), chapter 1.
[6] Richard W. Bulliet, The Camel and the Wheel (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), pp. 22-25
A. G. Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973), p. 72
[7] Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa, pp. 71-75
Robin Law, “Wheeled Transport in Pre-Colonial West Africa,” Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 50, no. 3 (1980), pp. 257-58
[8] T. A. M. Nash, Africa’s Bane: The Tsetse Fly (London: Collins, 1969)
Hopkins, An Economic History of West Africa, pp. 71-75
Ralph A. Austen and Daniel Headrick, “The Role of Technology in the African Past,” African Studies Review, 26, no. 3/4 (September 1983), pp. 170-171
Marcella Alsan, “The Effect of the TseTse Fly on African Development,” American Economic Review, 105, no. 1 (January 2015), pp. 382-410 (passim)
See also Law, “Wheeled Transport in Pre-Colonial West Africa,” p. 253
[9] Paul Starkey, “A World-Wide View of Animal Traction Highlighting Some Key Issues in Eastern and Southern Africa,” in Improving Animal Traction Technology: Proceedings of the First Workshop of the Animal Traction Network for Eastern and Southern Africa (ATNESA) (Wageningen, The Netherlands: Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), 1994), p. 74
THUMBNAIL CREDITS
Composite satellite image of Africa by NASA, public domain
commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...

[@iwishiwaschrismacavoy8116]

Back in my day we used to take pride in constructing a camel by hand, now all these kids are spoiled with their store bought factory made camels.

[@madyjules]

😂

[@kieranh2005]

And they break down as soon as the warranty expires.

[@amerballiu]

😂😅😊

[@jimc.goodfellas226]

Pfft probably say "made in China" on the back and everything

[@jungleng]

Don't get me started with eclectic camels!

[@katjarozantseva8069]

Came for “Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Europeans are human beings” meme, stayed for the history lesson

[@MMasterDE]

Why didn't precolonial Africa have the wheel? Because they didn't want to reinvent the wheel!

[@Al-ou3so]

Is that a lame leftist meme? You left-wing snowflakes are demons that want to censor everyone. Therefore leftists will never be funny.

[@chroma._.5986]

@@Al-ou3soit’s okay grandpa time to take your meds 😂😂

[@gavinbarnhart5204]

Well what would else they be?

[@Mr1930s]

At 6:55

[@GodBidoof]

One little trivia bit about ancient meso-America is that they independently invented the wheel, but they didn’t have beasts of burden to pull carts, so the wheel was largely used for inocuos things like kids toys. They didn’t need the wheel.

[@ShortArmOfGod]

No one "needs" it. Sure is nice though.

[@PlaylistWatching1234]

Lots of non-wheel tech is actually superior for the conditions. e.g. sledges are great!

[@calitaliarepublic6753]

A question that still needs answering: Why didn't they use hand carts? Some of these cultures had the concept of the wheel down, like the Aztecs. Some of them even built extensive paved roads like the Maya. And the Aztec and Maya had mutual exchange through conquest. But they didn't use manpower to pull wheeled vehicles. Why not?

[@Gigachadsik]

These people were wiped out by smallpox and conqured, the Africans were also conqured got independence, then became shitholes many such cases.

[@B-I-G-N-A-S-T-Y]

@@1987cml didn't they have lamas?

[@lochlanncairns621]

Even today the tsetse fly is a problem. I worked in a farm in Senegal and they tried twice to keep a horse and both times they didn't last a year :(

[@ataraxieabrutissante267]

What about cattle?

[@tomriley5790]

Yes I was going to say this trypanosomiasis in Africa is seen as a agricultural problem. It was a problem in ancient times too though - its why the major mesopontanian and Euorpean armies didn't push south over land - their horses dided.

[@jimstiles26287]

Next time, try a mule.

[@trishayamada807]

⁠@@jimstiles26287you need horses to make mules.

[@samdumaquis2033]

​@@jimstiles26287why ? Would it be more résistant ?

[@moonasha]

I think the reason this question gets asked is because the wheel is the basis of so many of our other technologies, that we cannot fathom life without it. The wheel isn't just used to transport things. It's used to generate power from water, to mill wheat, to spin thread, and so on

[@Anedoje]

That’s probably the only thing I as a Nigerian may regret not having the wheel earlier on for, Ie powering industry but at the same time we honestly ig did not really need it for what we used or developed, even when we knew about it the fact that we still did not use it may just mean it had no major use for us, Africa was never truly isolated so we knew about it but sadly had no real practical use for it ig.

[@sabrinat6838]

Yeah it is, but this doesn't change the material conditions. The development of the wheel like all other developments are a direct result of material conditions and so theres no real escaping that, the wheel lead to other technologies more or less by fluke.

[@JcoleMc]

Africa not having the wheel is just a myth , Precolonial Africa most certainly had the wheel .

[@joshrivers5191]

@@sabrinat6838 What do you mean by material conditions? There's plenty of materials in Africa to make wheels.

[@jordanoneill7052]

@@joshrivers5191 Material conditions refers to conditions and circumstances in the real world/environment, not just the availability of literal "materials" (which would probably usually be referred to more as resources in this context anyway)

[@petersmythe6462]

"They were cheaper to construct" "who makes camels?" "camels make camels." "explain!"

[@horrorspirit]

oversimplified reference?

[@adamelghalmi9771]

"when a mommy camel and a daddy camel..."

[@waldothewalrus294]

​@@horrorspirit"when one camel loves another camel..."

[@MathewMoss-fp9ju]

I've always wanted to know how camels were made, which was cheap in easy to manufacture and assemble, unlike those Swedish coffee tables

[@PhantasmalBlast]

I usually get my camels, pre-constructed. Just remember, try to avoid disassembling your camel, because if you do, the pieces never quite fit the same. Every camel I’ve ever reassembled has failed to live up to its factory assembled functionality.

[@simo4875]

@@PhantasmalBlast You monster! lmao.

[@naomistarlight6178]

it depends on the finish, a really shiny coat takes 2-3 more days typically than a matte coated camel

[@jeremywilliams5107]

A camel is a horse designed by committee...

[@almishti]

People use whatever resources are available to them: in Europe trees are abundant so they developed coffee table technology. In the desert you have two main things: sand and goats. Take some goat hides and spare organs, fill with sand according to time-honored techniques, and voila, you have a camel.

[@lindsaycole8409]

Early British colonial Australia imported camels and their drivers from elsewhere (the Ghan train from Adelaide to Darwin North South is named after British colonial Afghanistanian cameleers but many from colonial India) to solve the problem of transport into the interior of arid Australia before they could build railways and roads. There are now large numbers of non-native feral camels in Australia.

[@jacobtickenoff6591]

I’ve seen them

[@ropesquid2085]

We have so many feral animals! Donkeys! Foxes! Rabbits! Cats people let out! Even the majestic Snowy Mountain wildhorses are technically invasive pests!

[@Doug90210]

If wheels are overrated, why did every african country adopt them?

[@onijaanjonu3367]

Modern civilization allowed the wheel to be vastly more useful, both to africans and to those who used camels - a la rubber for tires and the internal combustion engine

[@liquiddw2]

Because of evil colonizers

[@All_Hail_Chael]

@@liquiddw2 Things is, if they aren't colonisers themselves, then the Nubians never ruled Egypt for 100 years.

[@premodernist_history]

That's true, there were black colonizers.

[@beerus6779]

@@All_Hail_Chael Let's not give them too much credit. Egypt became weak after Roman conquest.

[@samiamrg7]

I’ve never heard Europe described as a “Peninsula of peninsulas.” It made me think for a bit and realize that it is pretty accurate.

[@DrRiq]

It's a great description. Maybe we could call Europeans Peninsularites

[@erkinalp]

@@DrRiq antepeninsula 😂😂😂

[@mirzaahmed6589]

Thomas Sowell described it similarly.

[@yourfinalhiringagency3890]

@@mirzaahmed6589 gibbon did it before so sowell, and probably many before him.

[@yourfinalhiringagency3890]

If u haven’t heard it described like this, it’s Bc u don’t read enough history. and before u respond with some retort about how u do - no, u don’t.

[@joe18750]

I think you should amend your title to, Why precolonial Africa didn't have the wheel FOR TRANSPORT. When I hear the word wheel, used as you present it I think of transport yes, but also water wheels, windmills and mechanical motor mixers. Or even the simple karum. So, I think a more through question is, did Africa use the wheel in any capacity?

[@shafsteryellow]

😂😂 there were chariots and mill's

[@joe18750]

@@shafsteryellow so, we're in agreement. it's not about the wheel, the video is about the cart/wagon.

[@shafsteryellow]

@@joe18750 What is a chariot? There were carts used to unload goods from the coast and transport in markets across the horn and North Africa... sure niger-congo speaking regions have a different climate with dense vegetation and rainy seasons that make it useless. However that's not all of africa so the title is ridiculous but you're very right in limiting a wheel to just transport is very silly since it was used for processing grains and pottery even in those regions that didn't use it for transport

[@olemew]

When he started talking about rivers I immediately thought of my wheelbarrow. Does he think every yard and construction site has a river crossing by?

[@acpropulsion6191]

@@olemewexactly. I was thinking “yea, but how did they get goods TO that river”

[@eduardouribe8368]

The tropical rain forests of central Africa, the Amazon and the Andes were and still are fully covered with trees. In those conditions roads for carts were not (are not) used for several reasons: 1. The forests would re-take (grow over) the road very fast. It rains a lot so carts would get stalk. People walked (and still does) along paths in the forests and use rivers (canoas). In the high Andes of Perú and Bolivia, people used, and still use, lamas (same genera as camels). Of course they know carts and wheels but lamas are “better”, less costly, more efficient for the topography. Lamas, like camels do no need roads to be built and maintained.

[@danielradu3212]

So was China during the Zhou dynasty. Yet they built roads for chariots in jungles and in high places. The Egyptians used chariots in the Sahara.

[@hez859]

@@danielradu3212 China does not rain nearly as heavy as it does in most rainforests, same for Egypt

[@danielradu3212]

@@hez859 China experiences large typhoons and catastrophic floods. India also experiences monsoon rains yet implemented chariots over time since 1500 BCE. Sometimes a civilization (Bantu or Atzlan) miss a key innovation. Just like the Americans walked on the moon and not the British. The Chinese also missed vital innovations in gunpowder weapons, despite inventing it.

[@jared_deraj]

llamas are cheaper to construct.

[@Masterdesstruct]

​@@danielradu3212you are mentioning two civilizations bordering with other civilizations with drastically different climate conditions. Chinese never could get into Vietnam and into those deep jungles, and egyptians were mostly Mediterranean technologically so they had to keep chariots for war. Also, their climate was good enough for agriculture and keeping horses along with camels

[@Martiandawn]

With respect to adoption of the camel, Europeans already had the ass (donkey) for overland transport. From what I've read, the ass probably handles the rocky, mountainous terrain found in Europe better than camels would. So, even if camels could have adapted to the European climate, they might not have been the best option for moving goods in between the riverine transportation networks.

[@FifinatorKlon]

Horses were and are still used in mountainous areas of Europe. The Swiss and Austrian armies still use them today. Why bother with freaking camels. Horses really go well together with wheels though, so having mounts is not an excuse not to get better tech.

[@benrex7775]

​@@FifinatorKlon I'm one such a member of the Swiss army who uses horse to transport material. :) If you want the size of a horse and the flexibility and brain of the donkey then the usage of mules is also great. A bit less than 10% of all pack animals the Swiss military uses are mules. I never worked with camels or heard about someone who uses camels as pack animals in Switzerland. What I know is that lamas are sometimes used in the Swiss alps. Or large goats. But in the end most people who still do pack animal work use horses, mules or donkeys. A well trained horse or donkey is capable of working the field, carrying loads, being ridden, pulling tree trunks and carts. You can basically train a single animal to help you out in all your needs and don't need several animals for the various purposes. Those horses and donkeys can do the work almost independently, if trained well. For example there can be a guy loading the horse at one place and then the horse walks to some other place all on it's own and there some other guy removes the load. Of course that requires a peaceful country where people don't steal stuff or where no wolfs kill the horse along the way. ----- I just read through an article comparing the camel with the horse. The article is biased towards the camel, so it required a bit if reading between the lines. But here are my conclusions why the horse/donkey is used in Europa and not the camel. - For one the Camel is not native to Europa. I don't know how big that influence is, as the contact with camels goes back several millennia. So if the camel was noticeably superior then it would be used since the time of the Romans. - Camels can carry about twice as much as horses and they require less maintenance (food, water, medical care, hoofing...) and have more endurance over long distances. Additionally they can better deal with with harsher terrain. But they are slower than horses. But when carrying loads then horses are also slow. So from the point of view of a pack animal, horses are not really faster or more agile. Based on the stats alone one would think the camels are more suited for the alps. I think the reason why they are not used is because horses are way more flexible in their usage. Camels are more useful for the purpose of long distance material transportation, but Europa doesn't need that due to the rivers and lakes and coasts. Also the Romans created a network of roads that lasted until today. So we can use boats and carriages instead of camel caravans. Europa probably needs pack animals for way shorter distances and Europa is fertile enough, that the increased water and food consumption is not that big of a problem. And poor people who can't afford the maintenance of a horse would just use donkeys or mules or oxen as an alternative. According to what I've read camels are better than horses in rough terrain like the mountains. But they didn't mention if camels also outperform mules and donkeys. Also the horses we use are pretty good at walking on difficult hiking paths. So I don't know how big the difference is between horses and camels. Horses can be used as a fast warhorse, a hunting horse for the nobles or as a calm pulling horse for the farmer. Those horses I just listed were different breeds _(See "Medieval Misconceptions: HORSES" by Shadiversity),_ but since they are all still horses, the way to train them was pretty much the same. If you want to train camels then you would need completely different specialists. Form trainers to maintenance workers (hoofs, healthcare...). There are cases where camels would be superior to the horse, but the cultural infrastructure is already set up for horses so the additional cost of being unique makes the usage of camels too cumbersome. - Camels are more difficult to train compared to horses due to their stubbornness. I don't know how their stubbornness compares to donkeys and mules. In my experience, the mules are somewhat similar to horses, at least in the military environment. The ones I know are slightly more stubborn, but since we only use well trained animals their performance is pretty much equal. Also we don't use them long enough so that the user can really get an optimal behavior out of the animal. Theoretically horses deal better with changing owners while donkey and mules prefer a single owner. Donkeys and mules tend to observe and think so if they notice something they show it to the owner while the horse tends to either be frightened or just follow the lead into danger. The horses we use are very well trained and frightened by almost nothing, pretty much comparable to the mules we used. In the military context where we use the animals for a few months at most, the difference in character in mules and horses is pretty small. I don't know how Camels compare, but based on the article I read, they seem to be less trainable than either the horse or the mule/donkey. I guess camels would be trainable for the caravan transport, but not as an all purpose worker like the horse or the mule is. Also camels are more sensitive to hectic and noisy environments compared to the horse. Horses just need to get used to the environment and then they don't care if they are on a shooting range or in the middle of the city. ---- _Horses really go well together with wheels though, so having mounts is not an excuse not to get better tech._ Humans are lazy. They only use more advanced stuff (which comes with more maintenance), if they are forced to. In Europa they were forced to due to the environment and the feudal system. Also in the medieval times, they were under constant attack by the Muslims, and their trade routes to the east were heavily restricted by the Muslims too. And if we add to that the Greek/Roman heritage as well as the Christian mindset, that the universe follows universal laws that were given by a universal law giver, then a lot of things came together to create the industrial revolution. I do think there are biological effects that contribute how innovative a society is. But this is probably a small factor while geography, ideology and political structures are the bigger influence. Also there is the thing that invention happened all around the globe in all cultures. The question is not if something got invented but if it is applied by the common folk in society. That is the point of when technology really gets an improvement. Or in short, yes, having mounts is not an excuse to not get better tech, but we need to be motivated to invent stuff and then apply those inventions in the daily life. ---- I hope you don't mind that I wrote a small novel. I got curious why the camel wasn't used in Europa and followed the rabbit hole. And writing down the thoughts helps me formulate my thoughts. So I just used this comment as a thinking help.

[@petrdv.6185]

Mules, donkeys, horses... they were carrying salt from Austria to Bohemia along the Golden Path for millenia.

[@cjlooklin1914]

​@@FifinatorKlonCamels can carry greater loads, move greater distances without stopping, and consume fewer resources than horses, they are superior pack animals by almost every metric

[@cjlooklin1914]

Horses are faster and more agile, great for hunting, sport, and warfare.

[@lloydgush]

Wheels aren't over-rated. It's leveled roads that are severely under-rated. And they did use the wheel, just not for mobility... There's some toys...

[@lloydgush]

Also, europeans did use camels, just not to the same extent. Environment, as in "cold" is not a reason, you can breed to aclimate, but yeah, the terrain wasn't suitable. Navigable rivers are a blessing the best, but also an obstacle.

[@calebbarnhouse496]

​@lloydgush environment for camels is a big reason, it's extremely expensive to breed camels for multiple generations to get one that can survive in the Temps it needs to work in, compare that to wheels and carts, something that as a principle is so easy to make and repair that ancient societies around the world made them in bulk because for inter city transport there was nothing close to as good, and when a river didn't connect cities, there was nothing close to as good for the job again.

[@onijaanjonu3367]

You are confusing africa with the Americans. There are no such african wheeled toys, there are mesoamerica wheeled toys, although they did not use them for long range transportation. Thus still is deeply impressive on the part of the mesoamericans. Why? Because that would make them 1 of exactly 2 populations which ever novelly invented the wheel - the other being Mesopotamians.

[@lloydgush]

@@onijaanjonu3367 actually, there are, in west Africa at least.

[@lloydgush]

@@onijaanjonu3367 also, in the case of west Africa, likely not independent. And a curious case for why they didn't use it for pottery.

[@stephanpopp6210]

One reason for the failure of the First Siege of Vienna 1529 was the breakdown of the supply chain on camelback. The siege dragged into an unusually wet October, and camels cannot stand cold wet weather.

[@Miolnir3]

Europe didn't need camels because horses, donkeys, mules, and oxen

[@malachi-]

No common sense allowed here.

[@user-xe9tr9hf6b]

You mean domestication that their European ancestors did to allow them that option

[@Miolnir3]

@@user-xe9tr9hf6b "european ancestors"... europeans... yes. So? I meant what I meant. It's not complicated.

[@Doodoofart725]

​@@malachi-Exactly, that's why you two geniuses completely missed the point. It's not about camels specifically, it's about pack animals being a better fit than pulled carts in certain situations.

[@mickimicki]

It's also easy to forget that, until maybe 150 years ago, many (smaller) loads were carried by other means even where transport on wheels would have been possible. I know that in my mother's rural German village, in the 19th century, there were of course carts and wagons which farmers used for big loads like harvest, hay, wood or a sheep pen. However. Draft animals were valuable and expensive, so was the extra food (oats). Also, not everybody who did agriculture had proper draft animals. Small farmers had to borrow animals from richer neighbours, or use a cow, and they wouldn't do that to their poor cow to draw stuff they could carry themselves (also they still wanted that cow to have calves and produce some milk!) Market products like eggs, butter, fruit and vegetables were carried to town (several hours away) on the heads of the women who sold them. Carrying stuff on the head seems to be an African thing today, but 200 years ago it was common in many rural regions. Even donkeys were still used to transport stuff like sacks of grain / flour to the miller and back.

[@Masterdesstruct]

This is something a lot of people forget, is that for millenia, keeping a horse is something really expensive that only few could maintain. Much more a carriage

[@Maritimesgestein]

​@@Masterdesstructbut a handcart doesn't need a horse and still has wheels

[@peropero2307]

Ye donkeys and heads :D But we still have wild horses, mb is hard to tame em

[@terrencebucker]

@@Maritimesgestein Handcarts aren't that useful when there isn't the infrastructure (roads) to use them, or the capacity to cheaply produce and maintain good wheels. Domestic animals, on the other hand, grow by themselves, self-repair, and deal with rough and/or muddy terrain relatively easily.

[@fluidthought42]

​@@Maritimesgestein Handcarts aren't as free as your own hands. If you really have something too heavy to carry, borrowing a donkey might still be cheaper.

[@joshrivers5191]

It's all so tiresome.

[@user-em5li2zb5i]

The coping? Ya it is

[@hurehuren8628]

Replaced

[@joshrivers5191]

@@hurehuren8628 Doubt

[@30035XD]

Great reference

[@peanutnutter1]

You spoke too soon.

[@wadatmusik2859]

I had researched this subject within the past year or so, and learned about the zones where the tseotse fly attacks the equine population. However in the Northern Sahel region bordering the sahara, the horse culture of the Hausa people does thrive. Also in Ethiopia, horses were used by the nobility to some extent during the latter centuries.

[@jackrice2770]

Well, yeah, but he's talking about wheeled vehicles. The Egyptians used chariots (an idea borrowed from the Hittites) but only for war or the transport of elite persons....why? Horses are expensive to feed and despite what many people think, are not good endurance animals, so not really good for pulling wagons over long distances (that's why when used the teams have to be changed regularly.) Additionally, just try driving a cart through sand.

[@RationalP]

​​@@jackrice2770Horse are one of the most endurant specie on the planet. They sweat, use oxygen efficiently, have fatigue resistant muscles.

[@jackrice2770]

@@RationalP And yet, if a human and horse were to race across the US, the human would win, as humans can cover more ground for more hours on a daily basis. Yes, horses are adapted for running (duh) but they only need to run far enough and fast enough to out-distance their predators. Humans hunted horses for millenia just as other herbivores are hunted today, by the exhaustion method. I like horses, but they're not super-creatures, and most of what's shown in movies amounts to animal abuse. You gallop a horse flat out for hours and you'll have a dead horse.

[@williaminnes6635]

I remember the factoid that outside of 50 km of a navigable river or the coast, prior to the invention of railways, it wasn't economical for farmers to produce above a subsistence level, since the costs of fodder for their carts would kill their profits.

[@williaminnes6635]

unfortunately that was on a hard drive of mine which crashed early in pandemic and I failed to think of taking it to my local white box guy in time as it caused me a surge of depressive and somewhat delusional symptoms

[@joanhuffman2166]

Especially before an efficient horse collar was invented in China and eventually reached Europe.

[@gfuentes8449]

yes i'm sure they ran all those calculations, came to that conclusion, and decided the tradeoff wans't worth it. Lol

[@williaminnes6635]

@@gfuentes8449 I can't cite the guy but it was a theory of why French agriculture developed where it did during the Enlightenment. The peasants who actually had carts were the better-off ones.

[@RustyShacklefordReal]

​@@gfuentes8449factoid means untrue anyways

[@WiseOwl_1408]

Wheels are not overrated. They are amazing

[@thedude4795]

hahaha

[@nour4828]

Until they get stuck in the middle of the desert😂

[@realtalunkarku]

raycis whites n shieeee

[@rollitupmars]

@@realtalunkarkuBecause y’all literally are being racist wdf

[@realtalunkarku]

@@rollitupmars how , wheres the racism

[@NoVisionGuy]

Did pre-colonial Africans really sail to Asia? I think Polynesians came to Africa first (Madagascar) and was also first to settle there, I think it concludes that Africa didn't even have boats because why would Polynesians come to Madagascar first instead of Africans.

[@NanakiRowan]

Europeans didn't have boats because the Arawak came to Jamaica first instead of Europeans.

[@stevestiles811]

🤔 You do know that camels can pull carts and that Europeans didn't use camels because they had horses, barring the more obvious biome issues, right? And is utilizing an animal really a technology? The saddles, packs, carts and plows- for sure, but in and of itself, I'd be slightly hesitant to call the use of the animal itself 'a technology'. That's almost like saying that a remora attaching itself to a whale (and thus using the whale for its benefit) is remora technology. Before anyone says that's not like a person using a camel because it's a symbiotic relationship, don't you think there's something "in it" for the animals people use too, such as food & protection?

[@cherrywoodx]

You didn’t watch the full video before commenting and it shows

[@stevestiles811]

@@cherrywoodx I did, thanks. I know he was making a joke about the camels, I was taking it at face value because didn't see the point of making the comparison to begin with.

[@Adsper2000]

Domestication is a technology. It is literally the manipulation of the biology of another creature for the purpose of suiting human needs, that is a scientific application of knowledge. It’s not the same as two animals engaging in mutualism.

[@stevestiles811]

@@Adsper2000 I see what you're saying, I was basing it on having looked at the 8 definitions of technology in the American Heritage dictionary and it wasn't obvious that using an animal to carry stuff would fit into any of them. Under the common usage of the word though, I can see it. However, saying that it's a scientific application thousands of years before the scientific method existed, I'm unsure about that one. This is an interesting discussion, there's some nuance here apparently 😁.

[@xsystemgaming4219]

I hate to point this out, but the wheel was not only used for transportation…

[@Handle35667]

Well this guys has a specific narrative he’s pushing so facts are irrelevant to him.

[@bluebird5173]

I hate to point this out, but Africa did have wheels. Nubia, Axum, and Southern Africa all used wheels in ancient times according to Wikipedia.

[@Wolf-Rayet_Arthur]

​@@Handle35667I have only watched two of this guys videos. Before I go too deep, what is the narrative he's pushing? I don't want to put myself into another situation where I find a history content channel and end up realising it's a Nazi apologist disguised as educational content! So far this guy seems to be another historian that is asking questions of historians and how they built their narratives in the past. This kind of critical thinking is important imo. But go ahead, please tell me what's wrong with this guy before I waste my time

[@quigglyz]

@@Wolf-Rayet_ArthurIf you’re not able to steelman nazi apologists, you’re INSANELY ignorant.

[@Daniel-du7pv]

@@Wolf-Rayet_Arthurhe is just pushing a narrative to explain why Africans didn’t invented wheels, never created alphabet, never domesticated any native big animal (like the zebra), never reached other continents etc, without breaking the politically correct view that “every human has the same intelectual potential” (even if some races have 15 % smaller brains than other). In other words, he is just finding hollow arguments to justify the mainstream views, nothing new here.

[@notoriousgamer2831]

Assuming that the wheel is only used for transportation

[@onijaanjonu3367]

Yeah that's reasonable, although that was the original use case of the wheel and axle was wheeled transport. The wheel as in the potters wheel - which predated it, was fairly spread in eurasia but not used in African and native American pottery. This implies it's use in this form was simply less mobile. Ditto with the pulley

[@blank_3768]

the wheel was invented for transportation

[@akacadian3714]

Maybe Europe did not go for the camel because the Roman Empire created a surfaced road network at least in the Mediterranean Basin. Makes it easier to use wheeled transport.

[@david7384]

Maybe Europe did not go for the camel because they had superior technology - the wheel

[@olemew]

how you dare imply Africans didn't have superior technology and innovation

[@waldothewalrus294]

​@@david7384it's superior once you have powerful states that can build roads in favorable environments. Wheels, again, lack much viability without pack animals or smooth plains. They're pretty much useless in dense jungle.

[@Camilodigiorgi]

Very interesting video! I'll add the tentative of introducing the camel transportation in Brazil through the arid areas of northeast. Brazil's emperor Peter II went to a huge trip to the middle east during the end of XIXth century and came back with camels to be introduced in Brazil. The idea wasn't crazy, because northeastern Brazil was very dry, had only low and rough vegetation and no roads at all. Eventually there was lots of difficulties that made this not possible. It was hard to communicate with the Egyptians that came along, they were homesick, camels didn't reproduce as it was expected and locals thought the animals were too difficult to train and to manage compared to donkeys.

[@Gohka]

Never in my life have I seen someone write 19th century in Roman numerals lol.

[@timmaia5082]

It's a Brazilian thing. (Can confirm as a Brazilian myself.) Not really sure why, since it just makes teaching kids more confusing, but I was indeed taught that way in school.

[@Camilodigiorgi]

@@Gohka it's funny you say that, I've been living in Canada for almost a decade and in Quebec we do the same : Roman numbers are all around.

[@tiagomd3811]

​@@Gohka Usually westerners think their way of doing things is the only way that exists. You are an example of that.

[@binbows2258]

@@tiagomd3811 Its the best way. No sense in using 2 conflicting numeral systems. Its like cursive. I HATE cursive.

[@logarhythmic6859]

I recently visited Hawaii and went to a sacred historical site (Pu'uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park). The park ranger there gave a talk about the native Hawaiians, and touched on the fact that they didn't use any wheeled vehicle for transportation. He pointed out how many people equate that to a lack of technological innovation, but then pointed all around to the landscape around him and was like "do you really think it would be smart to try to wheel a cart over these jagged lava rocks?" They just used canoes instead.

[@patavinity1262]

Well that's a fairly stupid response actually. Plenty of civilizations indigenous to unideal geographical locations adopted the wheel throughout history and got on just fine with it.

[@logarhythmic6859]

@@patavinity1262 You must not have ever visited Hawaii. It's unfeasible even for modern cars to navigate most of the landscape. It's miles and miles of wildly uneven jagged lava rock that even bulldozers struggle to break up.

[@liteney]

why would they put their villages on jagged lava rocks? Their villages were in low lands, where wagons or wheel barrels would be beyond helpful. Transporting goods by waterways, and transfering hundreds of pounds of goods from the canoe to a wagon or wheel barrel pushed and or pulled by a few, is much better than having to have the whole tribe carry it on their backs.

[@patavinity1262]

​@@logarhythmic6859 I *have* visited Hawaii as a matter of fact - my mother is Hawaiian and I've spent a lot of time there. In fact I think it's clear I know the landscape better than you - there are many areas with even ground and which are entirely navigable using wheeled vehicles. If KZbin allowed me to do so, I'd post images of Hawaii to demonstrate this point, but you can easily see for yourself by searching online. The geography of Hawaii is in fact, unsurprisingly, not entirely consistent everywhere on the islands. There are perhaps areas of 'wildly uneven jagged lava rock' but that by no means characterizes the entirety of the landscape. The newer, outer parts of the island will naturally be rockier, while further inland the terrain is smoother - that this is the case is obvious if you think about it, as rocks erode away and soil builds up with time. Where my family live, south-west of Hilo (which is not even that far from the shore), it is nothing like what you describe. There are certainly rock formations around, but nothing that would make wheels impossible to use. The steepness of some of the slopes in Hawaii and the vegetation would have been far more important obstacles than rocks but these are not insurmountable either. In various parts of Hawaii there are expansive ranches where the forests have been cut down - rolling grassland without any rocks at all. And even where there *are* a lot of rocks, it would still generally be quite possible to navigate with a large-wheeled wagon even where it is not possible with a small-wheeled car. As the other commenter noted, your explanation also doesn't take into account the fact that canoes may be ideal for transporting things from one part of the shore to another, it's not going to help you if you live in the middle of one of the islands. A much better explanation for the Hawaiians' not having used wheels becomes apparent if you look at the example of Peru - wheeled childrens' toys have been discovered which were made by the Incas, proving they understood the principle of the wheel. So why no large wheeled vehicles? Because unlike in ancient Mesopotamia, for example, they didn't have any large animals to harness such vehicles to, and so didn't build any. The same goes for the native Hawaiians - the largest animals they had were pigs.

[@IchGukNurZu]

They could have build roads.

[@vStoned]

We dont construct camels??? such an art must have been lost to the ages

[@LiShuBen]

Nah, it's still a thing. I'm from a line of camelers. My daddy was a cameler like his daddy and so on. It's thankless work, but people need camels.

[@CarlXVIGustafBernadotte420]

@@LiShuBen I thought small family camelers had died out since they invented assembly line constructed camels. I work as a hump assembler in the camel factory and in 6 months I've got a promotion to become senior hoof polisher

[@preston0]

​@@CarlXVIGustafBernadotte420 movin up, nice. And nice to hear that there are still some small family owned camel comp.s that stand by the quality of their craft. The big camel industry camels die on me pretty fast. I wanna switch and support a local supplier, but what can I say can't beat those prices. Slave to the capitalist game smh.

[@CarlXVIGustafBernadotte420]

@@preston0 Yeah I know shame all politicians in Washington is bought and paid for by Big Camel

[@thestopper5165]

These days, cameling really is artisanal - the days of prêt à porter camels are long-since passed. Times were - back in the 1980s - that you could go to Target on your way to the pub, and pick up an 87R camel (or dromedary). I think the entire industry got ruined by the reduction in tariffs in the 1990s, which eviscerated the industry. Also, camel-abuse was absolutely *rife* back then. People would go to the SS&A Club (mostly to pick up), then they would always take in a couple of Bactrian-v-Dromedary showdowns that were put on in the car-park by local gypsies. Maybe the 1980s were different in Wodonga, but that's unlikely. These days, you really want to ensure that you're getting a fair-trade free-range camel - preferable with a USB-C port (so that they can be recharged: the old micro-USB ones were a pain because you had to have the charger cord up the right way).

[@rando5673]

I would also argue that there were/are fewer selective pressures in these regions. When the weather is good enough to have livestock and pick fruit from trees year-round, you have less need for grain. Grain was useful because after grinding it with a wheel, it could be stored over winter months when food was less available. Shelters also had to be more advanced technologies to keep you and your livestock warm half the year. This lead to more advanced stoves and a pressure to discover more energy-dense fuels. Energy-dense fuels were integral to the industrial revolution, and the engine is basically a very complex stove. Necessity is the mother of invention. When food availability is "good enough," there's no need to develop these technologies

[@TOAOM123]

In other instances where this is the case, people generally bred crops into a functional order

[@rreagan007]

Wheels aren't only useful when you have draft animals. Human pulled hand carts and wheel barrows are very useful and were used in ancient times. They would certainly have had uses is southern Africa.

[@gobomanaga5615]

Africa has plenty of potential draft animals, Africans never domesticated them because of low genetic IQ potential. This entire video is just an excuse to ignore the actual detail no one wants to address, like so much other modern "social science"

[@RibeiroGames12]

​​@@gobomanaga5615which ones? Zebras? Zebras are ultra aggressive and persecuted. Horses? Horses aren't native to western/southern/central africa but were available in north-eastern Africa and the Sahel (only camels). And they were quite useful for Ethiopians (Abyssinian horse), Somalis (camels and pony) and Nubians (Horses and camels)

[@rushi5638]

​@@RibeiroGames12 You don't need a continent or country-spanning system of interconnected roads, you simply need flat level terrain maintained within and around a city, town or village. Wheels are still a massive local efficiency increase for hauling goods about town! The wheel does not require the existence of draft animals or paved roads connecting major cities: just a civilization with the idea to make them, and the minimal capacity to make them useful (ie maintaining local thoroughfares). The efficiency increases were seen as small enough that it never caught on as a useful idea (if the idea to use wheels that way occurred at all), maybe. That's fine! There's no harm in that being the case, really. Different priorities, or just bad luck. Bicycles weren't invented until the 19th century, and they are a massively efficient technology that operates on chains and gears and wheels - all ancient tech. Sometimes a really great idea just doesn't materialize for a few hundred/thousand years for no particular reason beyond "the thought never occurred to us to use this idea like that before now".

[@rushi5638]

There's a kind of gross colonial paternalism in attempting to explain why the natives of certain places understandably couldn't/wouldn't have wheels. It reeks of accepting the premise that inventing and using the wheel is uniquely important, and then looks for ways to explain why groups who didn't do so are "just as smart" despite that fact. We should just accept that "Hey, they can be just as smart either way. Sometimes a good idea just... doesn't happen, and/or doesn't take off." Romans should have had bicycles. They didn't.

[@gobomanaga5615]

@@rushi5638We know for a fact that they are not as smart. It is Genetic, this has been proven in thousands of IQ studies, and Twin studies proving that it is the case irrelevant of rearing. The Social Sciences are attached at the hip to neomarxism and refuse this fact because it allows them to spread the ideology of the oppressor and the oppressed(because when you remove IQ there must be *SOME* reason why africans do so poorly in modern society) Like a doctor refusing you medicine so that he can give you his own proprietary treatment. "Romans should have bicycles" No, they shouldn't. They had horses and didn't have a way to mass manufacture the parts required for a bike chain and socket system which would make it viable in cost compared to a horse.

[@redcommierad2447]

I'm from Madagascar and here, during the pre colonial era, some people were already aware of wheels. The nobility who ruled over the central highlands actually avoided it as much as they can. The main reason is that by adopting wheels and so transport with wheels, adapted roads would have to be built. The highlands were surrounded by large hills and was a mountainous area, which meant accessing it would be difficult. The nobility saw it as a military advantage as it would make it more complicated for invaders to reach the capital. Along with jungles and dense forests which were infested by mosquitoes that could cause malaria, it was deemed an effective natural protection against invaders. Building roads adapted for wheels would mean that a stronger army could easily reach the capital (like the french). As far as I'm aware of, that was one reason why wheels were not adopted even when they have already witnessed other people using it.

[@thegameranch5935]

Sorry if im being offensive or anything but do you have lemurs in the cities?

[@redcommierad2447]

@@thegameranch5935 not in the cities but in villages near reserves you might find a few.

[@yourfinalhiringagency3890]

Reminds me of the time Cyrus built a road all the way to the Hellespont and after a failed attack on Greece, Alexander followed the road all the way back to Persepolis and the rest is history.

[@thegameranch5935]

@@redcommierad2447 cool! I hope I will travel to Madagascar one day, its a beautiful place with wonderful wildlife and people.

[@yourfinalhiringagency3890]

@@thegameranch5935 now you know 😉😉

[@davymachinegun5130]

The sign is a subtle joke. The shop is called "Sneed's Feed & Seed", where "feed" and "seed" both end in the sound "-eed", thus rhyming with the name of the owner, Sneed. The sign says that the shop was "Formerly Chuck's", implying that the two words beginning with "F" and "S" would have ended with "-uck", rhyming with "Chuck". So, when Chuck owned the shop, it would have been called "Chuck's Feeduck and Seeduck".

[@bilalsqualli-houssaini7547]

lmao

[@MattC-jg1yb]

Bazinga!

[@njathifrancis]

More like Chuck's f**k and suck

[@zen6455]

It would be fuck and suck…

[@jeffrooturantula2081]

@@yuron8210 look how it steals that entire catalytic converter without dropping the fried chicken wing

[@annfrost3323]

So the wheel is also a pulley to move and raise weights. Also water wheels were used long ago. The Mayans and Aztecs used rudimentary 'wheels' to push stone to build pyramids, almost 2,000 years before Christ. Africa?

[@NanakiRowan]

"The Mayans and Aztecs used rudimentary 'wheels' to push stone to build pyramids" No they didn't. "On the other hand, Mesoamericans never developed the wheelbarrow, the potter's wheel, nor any other practical object with a wheel or wheels." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel Do better research.

[@WheresMyInhaler]

@@NanakiRowan”do better research “ as you link a Wikipedia article lol. The Mayans were significantly more advanced then Africans .

[@NanakiRowan]

@@WheresMyInhaler Lol no they weren't, nor did they use wheels as the OP is claiming.

[@coronavirus553]

They didn’t use wheel meaning they were technologically inferior right? This is the logic that people use for pre-colonial Africa.

[@Jhossack]

Premodernist is making the arguement that one needs a certain level of technology before the wheel is useful.

[@alexh2947]

Premodernist is making the argument that one needs to live in an environment that is doesn't actively try and kill the main use for the wheel.

[@harrymaciolek9629]

Let’s not forget the wheelbarrow. It’s a great increase in productivity over using a basket to move material.

[@HBon111]

shhhh don't ruin their fun of trying to defend minorities

[@RedRabbitEntertainment]

@@HBon111 You're definitely going to hell.

[@bigchris1234]

Bull shit. You didn't know that having women transport goods by placing them in baskets on top of their heads is the most efficient way? You must be racist.

[@literarywho3065]

Right, move alot of material for what though? The traditional west african house is made from sticks and the ground it stands on.

[@mortache]

A wheelbarrow is more of an expensive afterthought. It doesn’t cost as much when you already have an industry of making carriages and carts and all sorts of things going. But in isolation how many cultures used wheelbarrows when they couldn’t use carriages at all?

[@HansLemurson]

I can't believe the Europeans were so closed-minded as to not embrace the camel!

[@muhammadabuzarkhan7450]

Camel are easily replaced by horses because they are faster and have more power to pull things.

[@realtalunkarku]

Racist cave monkeys wouldn't use camels!

[@ukaszangowski536]

Are you serious? Watch that video again 🤦🏼‍♂️

[@bambino_88]

@@ukaszangowski536 hes most likely joking (I hope)... because we didnt need camels. the wheel was invented in Mesopotamia. we just applyed that invention and used it in correct way 😅 camels can tow a WHEELED vehicles. like a horse. just that camel has advantage in DRY ENVIRONMENT and HORSE got advantage in power. thats all.

[@Wolf-Rayet_Arthur]

​@@bambino_88horses cannot carry more than a camel, and camels are just as fast over distance. Camels are also quite capable of surviving in European climates with minimal extra care versus horses. European horses were also small - we call them ponies today. It wasn't until the great big horses from the middle east were taken to Europe that the horse as you're imagining it became a thing in Europe. The bottom line is: horses are not better than camels, they aren't even better in European terrain! They definitely wouldn't have been a better option than a camel back then either.

[@ExcooseMwah]

Before you read this, I am NOT an africanist nor am I an expert on the subject, not all of my information may necessarily be correct so don't take it all as 100% factual. That said, I do read about and take an interest in Africa and do generally take notice in some misconceptions others may not. I feel your video is based upon a flawed premise. To broadly state that africa south of the sahara did not utilize the wheel prior to European colonization would be false as there were places such as Mali that have evidence of the existence of the wheel as well as places such as Ethiopia. Granted, the former, Mali, is similar to the Mayans as I specifically refer to the usage of wheels on toys. What this suggests is that the idea of the wheel was not foreign to them. It would instead be more accurate to ask why the wheel was not widespread in precolonial africa which likely, at least in part, boils down to a lack of domesticable animals as a result of Tse Tse flies in parts of Central Africa, geography that I don't know enough to comment on, as well as isolation. If we are to take 'precolonial' to mean before any outside influence, that would be an arbitrary standard to specifically hold Africa to as many places and civilizations have adopted something from someone else. Its not as if everyone had jsut magically developed in a vaccum, even so called 'cradles of civiliation'. Japan was influenced quite a bit by the Chinese. Hellenic culture has much of its origins in southern europe, but also strong mediterranian and northern african influence. Not to mention the ancient history of africa itself is not exactly well studied or understood archeologically. Personally I'm not knowledgable enough on it to say for certain if they did or did not. I think you understate just how isolated parts of Central and southern africa were. There was definitely some trade contact in these parts, some chinese pots(?) were found in Makumbugwe however there wasnt any evidence of direct contact with the chinese but they were still quite isolated unlike places in the horn or parts of the sahelian region. Yes, there were most certainly parts of subsaharan africa that were less isolated, when you mention trade through the sahara, yes, they did eventually find a way to get through the sahara with the introduction of camels but this happened much later than you made it seem. In these types of discussions, people tend to get hung up on 'inventing' something, even though you can invent something and not utilize it as extensively as a group that adopts the technology. The Mayans had conception of the wheel yet did not make much usage of it, and more infamously europeans adopted gunpowder from the Chinese and arguably utilized it better at that time. I recall there may also be instances of people in parts of subsaharan africa being aware of the wheel conceptually but not having had used it, but I cannot cite a specific example for it so take that with a strong grain of salt. Ignoring this, the wheel has only truly been invented, meaning created without a prior influence or conception, a number of times. The reason I criticize your phrasing of the question is because you are essentially defending against a false premise, that precolonial africa did not have the wheel at all which may promote misunderstanding and misinformation and is often used, falsely, by some people, some with racist viewpoints, that tend to be skeptical of the environmental explanation. In my experience, they tend to underemphasize the role of trade and adopting technology in history and in some instances apply double standards, ignoring other groups of people that have been 'backwards or 'unadvanced' as if africa was the odd man out and no one else has been backwards either. I do think you were correct about the introduction of the camel as well as to how geography can play into what technologies people create or adopt. I think a video from the KZbin 'FromNothing' on the same topic provides similar explanations and points as you do but does still acknowledge and refute the idea that Subsaharan africa did not have the wheel at all.

[@hariseldon2577]

Maybe the europeans didn't use the 'advanced technology' of camels is because they had the horse and Oxenand roads built by the Romans which still existed. Also, sub-saharan African trade involved very large numbers of slaves used as porters. Rainforest areas quickly regrow and it is easier for a slave to carry a load than an animal. Slavery was an integral part of sub-saharan African countries. After all, it's where the Dutch and Portugese came to buy their slaves for transport across the atlantic.

[@skp8748]

Well before the Romans existed the wheel was in use in africa 😂

[@hariseldon2577]

HAHAHAHAHHA HAHAHAHA **Breathe**HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH Breath oh dear me...@@skp8748

[@persychukwuka568]

This is just misinformation

[@spacemeter3001]

​@@skp8748why did they stop using it and fell behind then? 🤔

[@flammamancer]

Reminds me of why the wheel was not adopted in the Americas except in limited numbers. Its a common misconception that nobody ever had the inventive spark and thought of the idea of the wheel but that is not true. In the mountainous areas in say the South American mountain ranges the wheel is ill suited as its too dangerous when you do not have modern braking systems because when going downhill you have to spend all over your energy to prevent the load your are carrying behind you from running you right over or worse. They did have wheels on things like children's toys so they had certainly thought of it but had to use options better suited for the local environment. similar story with North America, The wheel just gets stuck in the mud unless you build a well irrigated Roman road wherever you want to go.

[@premodernist_history]

Yes, exactly.

[@chariotrider9716]

Wheels are used for more than transportation that requires brakes. Why didn’t any of these people use a wheelbarrow, the easiest way for a person to move heavy things by themselves? Also having something on a toy doesn’t mean you can grasp the full extent of its use. The Greeks made toys that used steam pressure to move, that doesn’t mean they could have made a steam engine.

[@sakogekchyan7366]

@@chariotrider9716 The Greeks did invent a steam cannon.

[@yoeyyoey8937]

@@chariotrider9716 they probably didn’t need a wheelbarrow or perhaps they were made and just got erased by history since they would have decayed by now.

[@Madokaexe]

​@@chariotrider9716the andean people didn't have horses at the time so they used lhamas to carry extra weight around and a system of mountainous roads that connected Cusco to Ecuador and several other cities, they had corn and potatoes that could easily grow so no need to overcomplicate irrigation, they had armors, weapons, great monuments and cities, they developed mathematical formulas and early forms of writing, if they had horses maybe they would have made a greater use of whells but at the time it was basically useless

[@Herlock07]

Also, the camel was used ONLY in the north of africa who already wait for it... were familiar with the concept of the wheel.

[@skp8748]

No the camel is from horn Africa modern day Somalia and they also had wheeled carts and pulleys... Then again the rest of Africa is walled of by climate and geography

[@theman9048]

They were used in the sahel too

[@likeyou1902]

You focused just on transportation, whereas in other areas of human activity wheels were also used. For example, in windmills or mechanical devices of many kinds.

[@AErch]

All hail Pulleys

[@bashkillszombies]

We also don't use canals to carry firewood a few hundred feet, but we sure as heck will use a wheel on a frame, or a couple of wheels. OP is just being obtuse.

[@SvendleBerries]

Pretty much everything in modern civilization requires a wheel to exist. People that just think about vehicles when a wheel comes to mind are just idiots. Just like people that protest the use of crude oil without understanding that everything they use to protest said oil is produced using crude oil.

[@mgevirtz]

the distaff is sort of a wheel as is a potter's wheel

[@FifinatorKlon]

@@bashkillszombies Aveiro and Venice don't exist. Ok.

[@asabovesobelow3023]

Unpopular opinion: The wheel is better than the camel

[@t123a698]

Medieval Europe didn’t adopt camels…, because it was the Dark Ages there. And camels can’t see in the dark. 😅😂

[@davidmaloney3587]

So the conclusion is: wheels just don’t help in Africa. This would definitely be a good argument for the Eskimo’s but it’s quite ridiculous as a blanket statement for Africa. A rickshaw would certainly have helped anyone carrying virtually anything in virtually any part of Africa. Also, why are wheels used in Africa today if they don’t help?

[@skynet464]

Because most of Africa today has modern infrastructure that can support wheeled vehicles, and wheeled vehicles are much more useful now than they were 1000 years ago.

[@RexMundi_UTC]

​@Esoteric Schizochad lol because pre colonial was pretty modern day civilisation 😅😅😅

[@onijaanjonu3367]

And In what way does a rickshaw overcome the mud issue?

[@onijaanjonu3367]

@Esoteric Schizochad because premodern societies are very famous for their modern infrastructure. And no, if Africa had the same infrastructure today as it did in 1960, there would still be no wheels.

[@premodernist_history]

I love how you think you can just take a rickshaw over open country.

[@grahammoore5920]

Apparently both the Ethiopian Highlands and the Somali peninsula used the wheel. The Ethiopian Highlands had/have rain-fed agriculture and an abundance of livestock, including horses.

[@justsomeguywithamask1351]

Not surprised. The Horn of Africa is ancient and had long standing ties & relations with many parts of the world unlike the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa, tbh they shouldn’t even be apart of that “category”

[@Qhawe_Jameson.]

​@justsomeguywithamask1351 😂😂 Africans accomplished a lot, be it South, North , West East.

[@zyaicob]

Exactly, we had chariots forever before colonisers came (and failed to colonise Ethiopia)

[@NLPexperts]

Do a video about mosquitos and religious warfare plus the language gap. How early African adventurers used trinkets and jewellery to trade with across hundreds of languages and currencies is fascinating sting. Great video, I don't know of African history but enjoyed the content.😊

[@TexasTimeLord]

People are surprised when I tell them that the German Army relied on horses during the Invasion of France and during the Batttle of the Bulge

[@iannordin5250]

I think another interesting thing to point out is that the wheel and axl was not a widespread invention but appeared to have been invented once in Eurasia and spread around. Outside of that we can't find much evidence of cultures anywhere independently making the wheel and axle. Plenty of cultures have toys and small constructions showing that a concept of the wheel existed, but the wheel and axle as a form of transport seems to have been a very unique spark of genius.

[@skp8748]

But there were carts in Somalia long before Italians came..

[@andrasfogarasi5014]

@@skp8748 Italy wasn't Somalia's first contact with the rest of the world you know.

[@Bigmojojo]

​@@skp8748Italy didn't exist until after the Industrial revolution had started. We are talking about pre industrial revolution, pay attention please.

[@nilesbutler8638]

@@skp8748 You get that we´re talking thousands of years earlier, do you?' First time "italians" visited somalia was when the roman empire owned egypt. And people had chariots long before the romans.

[@piney4562]

That said, it's one of those things, that finding evidence for isn't especially easy. Most of what we know about ancient wheeled vehicles such as chariots, comes from people talking/writing about them. It's definitely possible that they were more widespread than we realise. Indeed it is possible some cultures adopted then abandoned the wheel at some stage or other. There's a lot of proverbial, and literal mud between us and the whole picture.

[@phenixnunlee372]

Feel like people are missing is that we have really great wheels and axles now. But, even into the 1800 we still preferred water. Think about it New York built a canal instead of a road for intrastate commerce. The main way trade happened in the US was the Mississippi river for the majority of our history.

[@yourfinalhiringagency3890]

How many towns had a canal? How many towns had a road?

[@phenixnunlee372]

@@yourfinalhiringagency3890 any major town in new York would have canal access and the last mile delivery was done by road. As it always has been.

[@yourfinalhiringagency3890]

@@phenixnunlee372 so not all towns that traded had a canal, but every town that traded did have a road.

[@phenixnunlee372]

@@yourfinalhiringagency3890 this town to town transport would be last mile delivery.

[@yourfinalhiringagency3890]

@@phenixnunlee372 I acknowledge the maj of material were moved on water, but in human interaction a trade can be a bag of apples for some bricks, and most of these trades were done person to person, and they reached one another from a road, not in boats. % of trades by weight - water % of # of trades in general - road Adirondack lumber company sends all its traded wood downstream to one mill = 1 trade ongoing over a logging season. The mill than makes usable wood for everyone and they then make thousands of trades from people approaching on the the street. Not to mention the Native Americans would trade on foot. Just my op I think the maj of trade was done person to person, and usually off a road. But I do acknowledge the maj of weight traded was by water. The consumer trade is what makes the vast maj. And the typical consumer didn’t have a boat, or ability to swim.

[@webstrand]

What about wheelbarrows and hand-carts? I can understand their absence from non-agricultural regions, but they certainly don't need roads or animals to be useful. Just not as long distance transport.

[@bluelight4907]

To carry what exactly. A donkey will do that.

[@crazypantz3492]

@@bluelight4907 It can carry more with a wheeled cart

[@TheSuperRatt]

Look up the travois.

[@UmDatGuy]

Baskets wheels getting stuck is more inconvenient than just carrying in a basket

[@Uarehere]

Why waste your time building conveyances when you have the superior ability to carry things on top of your head?

[@roberth2833]

He disproved the claim that they weren't invintive enough (even after seing and engaging with wheeled transportation) and his answer is that they wanted and actively tried to get more GUNS. This is not... Not even close to an argument

[@jobiden2942]

Watch the video, you either stopped after 2 minutes or weren't listening

[@roberth2833]

@@jobiden2942 I was addressing one of the first points made as a counter argument. I watched it all and he never directly addressed any of the points he brought up. He actively danced around with conjecture

[@jobiden2942]

@@roberth2833 2 seconds after he said they were interested in guns he said that they also made their own guns

[@roberth2833]

@@jobiden2942 that doesn't show that they are 'innovative' that shows they were war minded. They saw and were exposed to the usefulness of wheels but instead they were interested in the weapons of war. They only wanted to make the guns themselves to not have to trade, not to progress an invention.

[@jobiden2942]

@@roberth2833 Did you watch the video? It literally says that they could use the wheel but was pointless due to the environment conditions.

[@user-jap84tlv24sq]

This is the biggest cope i have ever seen and something i would expect from a followers of Yakub.

[@premodernist_history]

Sounds like someone is upset that Yakub grafted them.

[@cents2kkk]

@@premodernist_history yakub gave white man wheel while black man wasnt??!!!!

[@user-jap84tlv24sq]

hahaha 👌so true. but you do be coping a bit, maybe those regions were richer in other things then science and technology and it would be nice to focus on that then up playing their level of innovation.@@premodernist_history

[@frankk1512]

​@@premodernist_history Your video is awful logic. You state Africa didn't use the wheel due to the conditions on the ground in regards to transportation. The only use for a wheel isn't for transportation? the lathe, the stone mill, the sewing WHEEL, the WHEEL barrow ect? Far better video of why the wheel as a lathe is probably the most important invention of all time here. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mpulaqKBa9WemKM Let me zoom out for you from this video you made to cope with the inequality of man. Let me tell you what you are, before I even hear another word from you. You are a man with a Phd, that is either too afraid of the educational establishment (Weak)or does not believe in the inequality of man(Dumb). You think evolution is true and selection is true. That selection is from the ability to adapt to the environment. You clearly believe Africa is not Europe and Asia is not Africa. But you think somehow all genetic groups all came out equal cognitively as some sort of miracle after 60k+ apart. Mother nature is the racist, you think she gave us cancer, hurricanes, volcanos and parasites but then yelled uncle with group differences? If you don't respond I will know its from fear, if you do and think that all genetic groups are cognitively equal I will know you are dumb.

[@crazypantz3492]

@@frankk1512 Just commenting to see if the video creator has the integrity to actually address a sincere comment refuting his points. Very much doubt it.

[@A.Severan]

Great video. I just wanted say I completely lost it when you said that camels were easier to construct. That just made my day.

[@junkmail5283]

I mean, it is if you have enough Pylons. Else...

[@sharonrigs7999]

Well....they are if you have male and female camels. They have a way of constructing themselves lol

[@premodernist_history]

@@junkmail5283 Wait, is this a StarCraft reference?

[@pietersteenkamp5241]

​@@premodernist_historynot that I know but i share your interest!

[@waqasusmans]

@@premodernist_history I enjoyed that blooper too!! Thank you for leaving it in the video ☺️

[@DMWayne-ke7fl]

Camels don't do well in Europe.

[@KevinVerberk]

Today I learned that, in fact, you DO NOT construct a camel . Another Great video 👏👏👏

[@magoschonkers711]

"why didnt europeans use camels!" they used horses. They used a similar animal more suited for their climate. Correction: as pointed out in the replies below the primary beast of burden in many areas was the oxen not the horse, and in some cases donkeys. The point remains that other areas had their own beasts of burden and this video is poorly made and a serious cope.

[@psyop.survivor1446]

No dude. Not the same comparison. We know the real reason why they didnt have wheels

[@magoschonkers711]

Fucking waterwheels, potters wheels, wheeled wagons; all were used in Africa

[@exriodonorte67]

@@psyop.survivor1446 But thats a political incorrect view so we cant argue.

[@psyop.survivor1446]

@@exriodonorte67 how is it political?

[@haraldbredsdorff2699]

@@psyop.survivor1446 It is political, because it push the blank slate theory, even if reality does not support that view. The only reason why it is political and not religious, is because the argument does not include divine powers. They can not admit, that one group or culture was superior to another.

[@ericvanvlandren8987]

But, if you hitch a camel to a wheeled cart it can easily move 5 times it’s back burden. In South America a llama can pull a cart laden with at least three times its back burden. And wheels aren’t just for transportation of course. I suspect the answer is more cultural.

[@calebbarnhouse496]

Sorry bro, but Europe used rivers for transport when it was available, that means that when there wasn't rivers, not using wheels made sense to them

[@ericvanvlandren8987]

No apology necessary Caleb. Your point is pointless, but better luck next time. Also, fairly certain we are not related.

[@onijaanjonu3367]

Wheels where not used for transportation anywhere in the new world before european contact. And the issue is that the *wheel it's self* gets stuck in much, especially as it would be constructed in the past, thus it doesn't matter what particular animal is pulling it. Camels have the advantage of being able to bear heavy loads and due to their feet shape, distribute far more weight.

[@ericvanvlandren8987]

Except for Mesopotamia, China, Egypt, Nubia and East Asia you are absolutely right. Of course as I said wheels have many other uses and those were in practice in many other cultures pre European contact. Virtually all draft animals, including camels, are used to pull carts and wagons. The utility is based on the circumstance.

[@ericvanvlandren8987]

Well said.

[@kevinblatter2369]

I am healing from the my latest bout with Covid and found this video. Best laugh of the week when you referenced that "camels are easier to construct." (Very informative as well.)

[@nathanfrentzel7197]

5:50 "And how scornfully the camels would look at us." Camels: "LOOK WHAT THEY NEED TO MIMIC A FRACTION OF OUR POWER."

[@realtalunkarku]

and now "roads aren't even good!" i can't i'm dying

[@Niani23455]

Roads were built by many African civilizations though.

[@TheAnonymousIndividual]

​@@Niani23455The only roads in africa were made in Rhodesia and South Africa, guess which demographic made both countries and which demographic moved in and RUINED those countries.

[@Niani23455]

@@TheAnonymousIndividual "The only roads in Africa were made in Rhodesia and South Africa." en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roads_of_the_Ashanti_Empire en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ife_Empire The Ife paved their roads with postherd pavements while the most important of Ashanti's roads were paved with stone. Dahomey also built roads such as the Royal Road which had impressive gardens surrounding the road. Road building existed among the Igbo, Fante etc.

[@Niani23455]

@@TheAnonymousIndividual "Guess which demographic made both countries and which demographics moved in and ruined those countries." Ironically, the Bakoni of South Africa built roads dating from the 16th century. The Bakoni are among the demographic you find so controversial.

[@realtalunkarku]

@Niani3428 without europeans you wouldn't have one city

[@patrickhenry6695]

Why did you show almost all Saharan Africa ? What did sub Saharan use instead? They didn’t use camals

[@DrRiq]

zebras 🦓🦓🦓🚃🚃🚃

[@patrickhenry6695]

@@DrRiq Lmao no 😂 zebras have never been domesticated.

[@akuhei032]

There are no draft animals native to sub-Saharan Africa.

[@us3rG]

Africans didn't travel much that's why most of tribes and such remained untouched. Sahara Africa people has to keep traveling to survive

[@us3rG]

Sub Sahara Africans didn't travel much and they didn't have to transport much, those by a body of water used the water but it still didn't require large boats, that's one reason most tribes and such remained untouched, Sahara Africans had to keep traveling to survive and trade was their hussle, camel is great for this.

[@3seven5seven1nine9]

Your reframing was smooth and incredible

[@spacemeter3001]

There's cope and then theres this video

[@michaelwright2986]

It constantly surprises me how recent the adoption of the wheel for transport is: less than 5,000 years ago, I think. And I had an epiphany in the Maritime Museum in Auckland. There are lots of boats from the Pacific collected together, and they range in size from ocean crossing boats to little one-seater outriggers to go from one side of the lagoon to the other, just like a bicycle. A whole ecosystem of transport, without a wheel in sight.

[@yourfinalhiringagency3890]

Trust me, that was not happening throughout Africa. That’s what the video infers, but it didn’t happen. Maybe on the north coast where the ancient Semitics and Greeks were sailing, but specifically African cultures, nah.

[@pauliusiv6169]

in the pacific archipelago, you basically live around water constantly, with fleet levels of hundreds of vessels sailing in convoi on land, you need domesticated draft animals or the internal combustion engine and suitable terrain in order for the wheel to be more simple and practical than simply carrying resources by hand (creating a wheel in the first place does use up valuable resources that could also have gone towards the other vital tasks of having yourself and your tribe staying alive in a harsh and brutal world)

[@universome511]

Did you have another epiphany when you realised none of that happened in Africa

[@michaelwright2986]

@@universome511 No. It was just a realisation that the wheel is not as basic to civilization as we sometimes think it is. Which is also why a lot of cities are on rivers. Possibly even in Africa.

[@mattk8810]

Or how much history has been deleted

[@ssl3546]

But people don't just use wheeled vehicles for long-range transport, there were plenty of carts used to carry goods around town. It's a little silly to say Europeans disfavored the wheel because they had rivers. Also I am not sure your arguments about cost etc. hold true for a small handcart.

[@MikeTheEntei]

He did mention short-range transport as a use case for wheeled vehicles.

[@johnrubensaragi4125]

2:45-3:12

[@THEDISAFFECTED]

Yeah this isn't his best video. Seems convoluted, like trying to shoehorn history into a modern sociological view. Or perhaps just big opinions developed by someone with a small store of practical experience to draw from (tho, sincerely, a delightful surplus of "book learnin"). The basic use case for the wheel is not transport at all, as we conceive that industry. It's wheelbarrows and dollies--that is, materials handling. Building on even the smallest scale is a lot less fun if you lack a wheelbarrow. If indeed Sub-Saharan Africans didn't use wheelbarrows and dollies, then I think the true explanation might have something more to do with a surfeit of human labor. Wheelbarrows and dollies--and indeed proper transportation vehicles--are work multipliers: they allow a lone individual (or a teamster) to do much more work than he could do without the machine. Perhaps the Sub-Saharan Africans, when there was work to be done, all pitched in as a village. Or perhaps projects were only directed by leaders with plenty of subordinates. The only time you'd have a project but wouldn't care to have a wheelbarrow is if you've got strong-backed youths by the dozen at your beck and call and no better use for their time. You don't need work multipliers if there's plenty of hands to the work. Exploring these paths could make a fascination investigation into any culture's view of what work is desirable? and what is the worth of people's time? and what might they do instead if not this work? I'd guess it comes back to winter: you don't really need work multipliers if winter ain't a-comin. But if winter is coming, then you're always runnin scared that you won't have done enough to make it through. And you can't so easily call the neighbors to come help you get ahead of your problem, because their family is working feverishly at solving the same problem.

[@premodernist_history]

I've seen conflicting things regarding the cost of labor in precolonial Africa. Some scholars think labor was expensive, and others think it was cheap. About wheelbarrows as work multipliers -- I don't know about Africa, but in the Middle East up until maybe a century ago they didn't use wheelbarrows either. Instead they'd have two guys carry a load like a stretcher. How would that affect efficiency? I could be wrong, but I imagine that just means you need two guys to move something around the job site instead of one, without affecting the labor cost of the rest of the project. In precolonial Africa we're not talking about modern construction projects where time is money. These were villages with often large family and clan units that pooled their resources. Also, the population size generally didn't change much, so not a lot of demand for new construction. You build the houses, granary, etc. once and then use it for a hundred years.

[@THEDISAFFECTED]

Well I think it's a powerful data point that labor was cheap, if indeed precolonial Sub-Saharan Africans eschewed viable work multipliers after learning of them. (Tho there may of course exist subtle dichotomies, like 'all intensive labor (construction, agriculture, long-distance trade) was directed by community leaders, who enjoyed such heady authority that, to them, everything was cheap, while to the ordinary person, perhaps, hired labor was virtually unobtainable, owing to the many projects of the leader.') I think there are not so many places on earth where, when labor is dear, a wheelbarrow wouldn't be a big advantage: in very soft ground, bogs or sand, and in broken ground, strewn with big rocks or gullies, and in ground so mountainous, so lacking level spots, that homesteads are built on steep hillsides. These exclusions would presumably account for some (perhaps much) of the mideast, where you say they used two-man stretchers in place of wheelbarrows. Fair enough. One-man (or draught-animal-powered) versions of a stretcher are the sled and the travois. Having carried innumerable trays and dragged sleds, I tell you with confidence: Dude. Wheels are sweet. Which brings me back toward my point: that rejecting work multipliers seems to me to indicate a situation where the person directing work and the person doing that work are not the same person, and there is a great gulf fixed between those two persons, so that the laborer, who naturally thinks all day long, while mutely portering, sweat pouring from brow, about how to make the work go easier, was not in position to effect innovation. As to your mention of stable populations and long-serving structures, this seems not tremendously distinct from medieval Europe, right? But I liked very much your mentioning the concept 'time is money.' The South Sea Islanders, for example, I'm given to understand, did not think time was money. They seemed to think time was something much better than money. And good on them. But the idea that time is money seems to me a thoroughly a fear-of-coming-winter-based idea, and that idea seems to be the dominant modern idea. If true, interesting that one of the main exports of Europeans to their colonies was (knowingly or unknowingly, artificial) fear of winter. Thanks for discussing.

[@WKGamesMain]

6:56 “Let’s assume for the sake of argument that Europeans are human beings” What did he mean by this?

[@TA-by9wv]

Its his way of telling us hes jewish

[@ultronius_studios7473]

its most likely a jab to the europeans who make fun of black people by saying "hurr, durr, africans only slaves and mud huts.", though I can assume your average rational European would have figured that out, or be smart enough to ignore it.

[@ultronius_studios7473]

@@TA-by9wv whats the problem with that?

[@Pengalen]

You're ignoring all the European uses of the wheel besides long range transport. E.G. hand and donkey carts, windmills, watermills, spinning wheels, the potter's wheel, flywheels for operating construction cranes, etc.

[@norfangl3480]

"Why didn't Europeans use camels" The average European didn't know what a camel was, nor did they know it was better than a horse. Assuming they did know what one was and knew it was better than a horse. Unlike a wheel, they can't just build it from scratch.

[@SiyaZwane]

Who else came here from that one viral tweet?

[@sharjeelkhan2576]

Yo..

[@kaput_hodge]

yeah haha

[@honeycherryblossom]

me lol

[@pokefrosch617]

what a wonderful video! Thank you. Subscribed.

[@sickregret]

A better name for this video would be “Why Subsaharan Africa didn’t commonly adopt the wheel for transportation before the Colonial Era and instead chiefly used it for pottery making and water-milling”.

[@pineconebob7532]

Tried to Google that. But looks like potterywheel or watermill wasnt used either

[@Niani23455]

​@@pineconebob7532Potter's wheel was used in Sudan and in some Nigerian states. Probably used in East Africa as well. However, wheel transport in West Africa was pretty common in Dahomey. In East Africa, it was common in Ethiopia and Somalia.

[@treeaboo]

Maybe a little bit verbose for a KZbin title.

[@johngrebenor2363]

Thanks for making this video! People often see thumbnails or headlines like this and paint it as some "wOkE" revisionism being used to meet supposed liberal standards of cultural analysis, but I think you do a very good job at acknowledging and arguing against the very narratives that necessitate the creation of this type of content. Many areas of the global south in particular have been painted as unenlightened, less intelligent, etc. in order to fit historical narratives of superiority, but the reality is far more complex than that. Really appreciate this content, and eager to see more from you! :)

[@JosephSchneider26]

🙏

[@userequaltoNull]

"woke" isn't a Liberal thing, it's a Gramscian neomarxist school, even if the useful idiots don't realize that they're engaging in racial/sexual/gender/ethnic Class Power Politics. I am a liberal, because I believe in fundamental human rights. "Woke" people are not, because they believe in creating racial/intersectional hierarchies, used to undue "historical injustices"

[@gigachad6885]

Please mention the countries in the southern hemisphere you would want to live in. Now do the same for the northern hemisphere. Half of the northern countries are amazing to live in (the other half, meh), while all of the southern hemisphere countries suck, the only good ones were built by outsiders. Don't lie to yourself, the average IQ is the main factor for a civilization

[@professornebula6545]

​@@gigachad6885 There is no good evidence to indicate that there are any significant differences in cognitive abilities between different races. If these differences were as pronounced as you make them out to be, then they would be more entrenched throughout history - they would be more evident across a broader historical context, but the reality is that the average standard of living was fairly uniform across most parts of the world. The disparity in the standard of living between industrialized and unindustrialized nations didn't form until roughly 500 years ago, which is a mere blink in a historical context. Geography has more explanatory power than race, especially when you consider that IQ also increases as a nation becomes more industrialized. IQ is a more useful measure of the development of the resources and educational institutions of a society than the intrinsic intellectual capacity of its people. I'm of the opinion that the success of the European continent stems more from their early adoption of guns. Once gunpowder was introduced to Europe they gradually began to weaponize it, and since Europe is a small country with a dense cluster of kingdoms, it was easier for innovations to spread between them. The use of guns gave Europeans a preemptive advantage in their colonial conquests, allowing them to accumulate more resources and territory and fuel their own development at the cost of other societies, all the while creating rigid social and racial hierarchies which benefited their own interests. It's not like I think Europeans are evil for this reason, it was merely an incidental advantage they gained as a consequence of the specific geographical and political circumstances they found themselves in. I'd also argue that your assessment that countries in the northern hemisphere are more successful because of some kind of vague racial superiority is a gross oversimplification, because again, the success of societies all over the world has been highly variable throughout history. I'd say that the reason in modern global society the countries in the northern hemisphere are wealthier is partially due to what I mentioned about Europeans weaponizing gunpowder and then spreading their control to other nearby countries (which just so happened to be in the northern hemisphere), but also, again, another geographical issue: the southern hemisphere is hotter, and this makes it more difficult to build and maintain infrastructure and organize. You talked about IQ, and something you may not be aware of is that there is a stronger correlation between a person's IQ and the area they live in than between race - people in hotter countries tend to have a lower IQ regardless of their race, and the most likely explanation is that living in a hotter country means more challenges to industrial development and therefore a lower standard of living and weaker education. The thing is that you want the world to conform to the narrative you've been conditioned to believe. It's easy to look at our modern international circumstances, especially through an already Eurocentic lens, and draw the conclusions you do. However, to arrive at the truth of a matter requires more in-depth and rigid analysis. You have to examine all variables and find as many data points to examine before coming to any definitive conclusions, and when you consider this, the reality is that the evidence for innate differences in intelligence along racial lines is weak and there are much better explanations. You believe what you do because you happened to be born in a society build by a self-assigned racial category that managed to acquire vast control due to conveniently advantageous circumstances, but any other demographic would have done the same given the chance. You aren't looking for truth, you're looking for confirmation of your preconceived beliefs. And even if I AM wrong, and we someday find strong evidence which does prove there are innate differences in intelligence between races (which I doubt), it wouldn't be a good reason to discriminate against other races. We all have emotions, relationships, goals, hobbies, interests and desires. We all want happiness, even if our definitions of what happiness IS are different. No matter what, I will always advocate for compassion and assistance - for us to raise one another up and constantly improve our potential. If you actually read this and get this far, I encourage you to try and look at this issue outside of the framework you've adopted - ask yourself if your assumptions are actually supported by the evidence and whether or not you've identified spurious correlations that have an alternative causal mechanism which has more explanatory power.

[@MALICEM12]

​@@professornebula6545 "we all have interests" A) so do dogs, what does that matter? B) yes we all have Our Own Interests! And thus must look out for our own. Your suicidal altruism only ever leads to betray. What is the reward for up lifting a downtrodden competitor? A rival who now will do everything they can to usurp you. Why welcome that? Why aid your opponents?

[@sweetness535]

Constructing camels would require a high level of sophistication i think.

[@merrickx]

"camel technology"

[@stevebuscemi6]

Why did the whole world have the wheel except Africa?

[@premodernist_history]

They didn't.

[@stevebuscemi6]

@@premodernist_history China didn't?

[@onijaanjonu3367]

As he said - they did not. The wheel spread through diffusion from the one location it was invented in - Mesopotamia. Even Advanced civilizations like the Inca and mayans did not have wheeled trasport.

[@stevebuscemi6]

@@onijaanjonu3367 the Mayans did have the wheel. They just didn't have much use for it.

[@user-de4iv9hj6p]

@@stevebuscemi6 most places in the world got the wheel via diffusion not because of any independent invention, and how frequently it was used depended on where you were

[@idruvak]

It's such a pity we have that evil fly... because the waterways in West Africa are quite difficult to navigate... Waaaay harder than in Europe ... Between the monsoon type seasons and relentless malaria (I've had it 10 times in my last year there) it's amazing that cities were able to develop there.... Not to mention genetic high blood pressure that kills otherwise strong & healthy adults... 🤷

[@roberth2833]

And Aids. That's a killer and stunter of growth too

[@JA-jx1hk]

You guys can’t come up with insect repellent and anti malaria medication? How is it that the west was able to come up with that after only a few centuries of being exposed to these conditions?

[@thedanish5523]

Thank you so much for keeping the "you don't construct a camel" outtake - had me laughing!

[@MyNameIsJ3ffrey]

Pretty sure the Ethiopians and Egyptians had wheels.

[@weskerwillie9044]

I've watched videos on this topic and they have been cases were wheeled carts were gifted to African rulers. These carts ended up being more trouble than they were worth and basically had to be packed permanently. Also, the akan people of modern day Ghana made wheeled toys or little wheeled sculptures thus showing a clear ability to do something of that nature. You made a good point on the tendency for Africans to even replicate European guns and canons. But despite this ability they had to heavily rely on trading with Europeans for guns and canons because certain components like gun powder simply wasn't available in commercial quantities and proved difficult and dangerous for storage. Buying from the Europeans was by far the cheapest and most viable option to acquire guns in commercial quantities.

[@OakInch]

Which Africans? The wheel was used in Africa extensively in pre-colonial times. All you need to see is wall art carvings from Egypt with chariots. The issue this guy is dancing around is why it was never used by black Africans South of the Sahara. Unfortunately, he chose to purposely confuse and muddle the issue with falsehoods and references to sand, because he has some kind of weird leftist politics box to check.

[@weskerwillie9044]

@@OakInch you're confusing yourself

[@OakInch]

@@weskerwillie9044 Egypt is in Africa. Ancient Egypt had the wheel. Egypt is populated with a different ethnic group than sub Saharan Africa. This guy is being blatantly dishonest because he has a nonsense agenda. Nothing confusing in that truth at all.

[@Threezi04]

@@OakInch Everyone here is talking about Sub-Sahran Africa, North Africa and the Horn were always more connected to Eurasia due to simple geography

[@skp8748]

​@@OakInch Somalis had the carts in cities from zeila to Mogadishu looong before the Italians... But for long distance cargo the camel ruled

[@dennis2376]

Why is the wheel, in light of this video, described as huge invention? Camels where used in B.C. Canada during the gold rush. They failed miserably.

[@deeznoots6241]

Camels understandably struggle as far north as Canada.

[@Murammassa]

@@deeznoots6241 ironic since that's where the first camelids arose

[@blank_3768]

it’s because our culture is derived from wheeled cultures and yee oldie historians believed that their culture was superior so more emphasis is placed upon the invention of the wheel.

[@rypere1788]

Because geometry is crucial to physics.

[@biotrekker]

Meso Americans knew about the weheel. They just did not use for environmental reasons. Even if the wheel was not used as the preferred means of transport, it was available, and it's adaptation to the chariot was a major military advance. Wheels could also be used in various machines. It is one step from the wheel, to the gear. t's not just the absence of wheel that is striking in Sub Saharan Africa, however -- there is very little in the way of extant monuments, temples, palaces, stadiums, aqueducts, burial mounds or the written word, when compared to Europe, Eurasia, the America's the Far East, or the Middle East. One major impediment to advanced civilization is the lack of navigable waterways in SSA. Lack of pack anaimals or horses is often cited, yet Sub Saharan Africa has Wildebeast and Zebras, however these animals were never optimally exploited.

[@NanakiRowan]

Wildebeest and zebra cannot be domesticated. SSAs also knew of the wheel but did not utilize it due to environmental reasons. Their extensive use of waterways were used instead. SSAs also had a great deal of the architecture you're describing. Unfortunately, much of them were destroyed in subsequent years due to war and disrepair. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Africa en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_systems_of_Africa en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_wheel_in_Africa

[@NanakiRowan]

I should add, their civilizations were quite advanced for the time (precolonial era), as admitted by Europeans and others who visited them. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_kingdoms_in_Africa_throughout_history

[@biotrekker]

@@NanakiRowan People say this about the zebra and wildebeat all the time with little proof. Do you think prehistoric wild horses were tame? Why would anyone think this? Domesticating the wild horse and cattle took centuries and breeding continued for millenia. It does not seem anyone even attempted this in SSA. Surviving examples of superior architecture in SSA are few and far between, whereas Mayan, Incan, Asian, Greek, Sumerian, Egyptian and Indian examples abound in in all kinds of environment -- deserts, jungles, mountains, etc. The comparison is stark.

[@NanakiRowan]

@@biotrekker The proof is that people have tried to domesticate wildebeests and zebras, and have failed. It is a well known fact within zoology that they cannot be domesticated. Yes, it is very sad that hundreds of years of conflict and deliberate cultural destruction (colonization), reduced surviving architecture in Africa. "Superior" is subjective though.

[@Rokomarn]

​@@NanakiRowanyou didn't even read the comment and it shows

[@tompommerel2136]

Wonderfully thought provoking as usual as to be expected from such a questioning mind!

[@ScreamingSturmovik]

it's pretty silly to compare with water based travel because even in our modern era most transport is still done by water, the scale is just orders of magnitude greater the U.S. army ended up changing from horse to truck even though horses still had better cross country ability you could also point out that even in the middle ages they had the Roman road network to work with

[@marshallscot]

Exactly. By tonnage, sure water transport far exceeds ground transport and probably always will. But that still doesn't explain all of the small human scale movements of goods that are required on a day to day basis. Most people aren't perfectly adjacent to a navigable water source. Maybe it is simply that Africans never domesticated their local animals. Cows, camels, and goats were relatively recent additions. Without decently productive agriculture and animal husbandry, you don't get the excess resources necessary for tradesman to develop crafts such as metallurgy and carpentry. Good luck building something as simple as a wheelbarrow without a smith and a carpenter.

[@yee2631]

@@marshallscot As mentioned in the video, some parts of Africa without the tsetse fly did actually have people with domesticated animals, but wheels aren't really necessary to move something that can move itself. Most of these sorts of people were nomadic pastoralists moving their herds from pasture to pasture.

[@KanadMondal]

@@yee2631 That sounds a lot like the Eurasian steppe herders who did use horse carts, and later on chariots. Maybe the difference was that they lived in the wagons at some point? Or as the guy above pointed out, was it their unusual access to metallurgy? Most pastoral cultures (I think) were not advanced in metallurgy.

[@yee2631]

@@KanadMondal I'm by no means an expert on that subject, but chariots were mostly used for warfare among ancient eurasian steppe cultures as far as I'm aware, and perhaps the most notable example of this would be the Yamnaya culture (who are often associated with early proto-indo-european culture). The thing is, the Yamnaya culture almost certainly didn't invent this technology themselves and probably learned it from another culture which likely learned it from another prior to that. The wheel, as it was used across most of eurasia, was not invented independently for the most part, at least not very often as far as I know, and largely radiated out from the middle east before being innovated upon further by other cultures. The poster above me metioned metallurgy as a possible factor in the development of wheels, but the earliest archeological examples of wheeled vehicles (like chariots) that we have are entirely wooden. It was only later with other cultures, such as early celtic cultures in europe, that metal rims were added to the wheels of wagons, chariots, and other early vehicles.

[@KanadMondal]

​@@yee2631 So, the Yamnaya culture never had chariots, the Sintashta culture, a much later Indo-Iranian group in Central Asia invented them. The Yamnaya, as far as I am aware, sometimes lived in wagons, which were not really the same. By metallurgy maybe not its incorporation into the wheels themselves was meant, but the creation of the tools to make accurate spoked wheels. As for that, obviously the wheel wasn't just invented by one group, but the spoked wheel I think was, if not unique, then characteristic of PIE groups. I remember hearing that it is unusual for steppe cultures to be metallurgically advanced, which I thought might be the exception to make the difference in wheels. Besides that, the people for the Eurasian steppes, IE or not, were very warlike. The Sahara and other more plain areas in Africa are also not really steppes, so there could be a difference there. I wasn't really pointing to anything in particular, but just spewing out a bunch of factors that may influence the development of the wheel and variants of it or its omission from transport altogether. I heard someone suggest that the PIE may have learned of the wheel from them Middle East, too, owing to their CHG ancestry. While I am unsure of the time period for that one, it would explain why the Native Americans did not use the wheel by default even though they spring off from the Ancient North Eurasians.

[@deaddynamite8568]

What happened in parts of India where they did not use the wheel or a camel? Is this just a area left bare by the map? Or was it a scenario similar to Africa where conditions prohibited the use of both?

[@premodernist_history]

I left it off because of my own ignorance. The wheel was definitely used in India. I just don't know if they also used water transport extensively (outside of Bengal, where I'm confident water transport was king), so I wasn't prepared to go out on a limb and say they used wheeled transport primarily or in combination with water. For all I know they may have used wheeled transport exclusively, in which case I couldn't color it blue on the map. Although I'm pretty sure head porterage was also a thing there.

[@user-ms7gt2km5f]

​@@premodernist_history this is the only angle you didn't really cover, namely the importance of water transport in Europe and the Near East as well. Even today most goods are still transported by sea, it was always the case before, except in premodern times the rivers and coastlines were main arteries for trade. The Congo, Nile, Swahili coast, etc

[@luis.m.yrisson]

India had elephants, which I suppose comes with certain specific perks.

[@ultronius_studios7473]

India has elephants, and also used donkeys in the smaller parts for load transport, however royalty and richer individuals often used carts as there were basic roads built as well. water canals were definitely used in perennial canals in the south, and during th emonsoon as well@@premodernist_history

[@mgevirtz]

Great video. Some things worth considering and looking into: Sleds -- humans have used sleds for a very long time. Chariots are essentially sleds with low friction skis Also, the history of the domestication of the camel through birth control is fascinating

[@buttsufancypantsu1644]

Wheels aren't low friction, they're articulated. Even if the overall effect is similar, wheels are actually extremely high friction by design, otherwise they'd have no grip.

[@55cook]

I lived in Rwanda, Kenya and DR Congo (Zaire) in the 1990s as a volunteer with 3 different organizations doing development and relief work. And this conversation came up many times among my colleges and local friends (mostly because of a curiosity that I had). Not so much the development of the wheel, but inventions and development in general. Much of the sub-Sahara is perfect for every sort of life supporting activity and yet most of the people were living in near poverty. I had come to the conclusion that it was just this fact that stifled development. The place is too perfect. There are two growing seasons in many areas, the weather is mild, (few storms, temperatures between 60 and 95), and in many areas there is plenty of water for irrigation. Bugs, parasites and disease were a problem, but the people were adapted to them, sort of. Life there was easy enough they didn't need to invent things to make for a better living. All you needed was a good spear to defend your village from lions and other marauding people and a digging tool to plant your crops. There were domesticated animals in the arid areas and those people lived like nomads moving from place to place to graze their cattle and to trade things. My guess was that usually their was enough land to support the people so there wasn't a lot of organized raiding of other peoples land or trading. So large organized governments didn't develop either. Maybe because populations were kept down by the bugs and parasites as they thrived there as well. Which then suggests that maybe it was too harsh of an environment to support inventive enterprise. I'm thinking more the former and not the latter. While I was there malaria and HIV were killing people by the millions and the Africans didn't seem to be fazed by the problem. It was like it had always been. Live for now and don't worry about tomorrow, it will take care of itself. That was one of the most important learning experiences I came away from my years in Africa. You don't need to possess a lot of stuff to be happy.

[@isolatedbutjacked7036]

yeah they never needed to get very creative, therefore didn't evolve to be that smart

[@55cook]

@isolatedbutjacked7036 I think genetically speaking, they are just as smart as Europeans or Asians. The smartest person I've ever known was a guy who worked with me in Rwanda. Quick as a whip. He grew up in the bush, had no formal education, spoke 5 languages, and figured out my job in a few months. I wish I could have kept in contact with him because I fear he might have been too smart for his own good.

[@henrydickerson9776]

The question of "why didn't x use something that was better?" often has a basic, but complex, answer. "Better for what purpose, in what conditions, and with the materials available?"

[@crazypantz3492]

A simple answer is not wrong because it's simple. Often, the most cogent answer is the simple one. The wheel has exceptional utility, this is obvious.

[@henrydickerson9776]

@@crazypantz3492 not in a river, or where there are no domesticated livestock to make full use of it, or on rocky terrain, etc.

[@crazypantz3492]

@@henrydickerson9776 Ok, but what if you're taking what you're carrying from a place that's close to a river to a place that isn't close to a river? Would a wheel help then? Yes. It would. And the wheel isn't reliant on a beast of burden, not that there's any reason you can't have beasts of burden in that region. There are various animals humans have adapted to their needs. Cows, horses, dogs, pigs etc. It's like humans are these completely helpless creatures when it comes to this argument for you people. And what are roads? You have heard of roads, I assume. You can have a certain terrain but build a little lane through it that has far more convenient surface. These are arguments are a joke.

[@henrydickerson9776]

@@crazypantz3492 you try clearing a yard deep of granite with hand tools. I'll wait.

[@crazypantz3492]

@@henrydickerson9776 What? are you saying the majority of sub saharan africa is filled with granite just below the surface?

[@Me-tg6ox]

This takes the meaning "whoever win gets to rewrite history" to a whole new meaning

[@bruhbruh-us6gl]

Not much to re-write if the loser never invented the written word.

[@vm_duc]

L + skill issue + cope tbh

[@Niani23455]

The only major part of sub Saharan Africa that was completely illiterate was the Southern African region. Majority of the Sahel, Central Africa, East Africa and the West African coast had literate individuals. Just this week or earlier, I had checked out the 'Sard al-kalam' written by Sokoto Nigerians somewhere in the early 1800s.

[@alvinyakatori3909]

@@bruhbruh-us6glfacts

[@paulmememan508]

Not sure if you're ignorant or disingenuous. No Sub-Saharan African people had a native system of writing historically. They have borrowed written languages starting around the 1800's and previously the Phoenicians taught people in their puppet cities around the 5th century to facilitate mining gold. Fun fact, there's people in North Africa to this day that use the Phoenician alphabet, though they can't read it and have no idea what it means. They decorate their pottery with it.@@Niani23455

[@pez.3117]

Reject the wheel, Embrace Camel.

[@sarcasmo57]

More modern day people should adopt the camel.

[@premodernist_history]

Agreed. They'd be great for off-roading.

[@WillN2Go1]

I really like your thinking and the way you frame the issue. This might be another factor. Growing up in Michigan we ran around a lot on old Native American trails. They're exactly what anyone would think they are. narrow, no foliage in the track. And humans walking on them, imagine thousands of years of soft moccasins, don't wear them down very much. Hard soled shoes? Maybe a little be more. Pigs have trotters, like hooves - very hard. If you've ever followed a trail on Santa Catalina Island off southern California you'll find these absolutely typical trails, like in any National Park or the Native trails. You'll figure out they were made and used by pigs because low hanging branches cross the trail making them difficult for humans. So foot traffic - low impact. Hiking the Wessex Trail in Dorsetshire, England, a >1000 year old path. It's generally much wider and sunken. Sunken means you are walking and to the side instead of an embankment of a slope, the pathway is cut down a meter. I figured out the difference near Nettlecombe Tout. There was a farm where I saw two teenagers on huge horses, at least as big as a Clydesdale. The trail near by that they rode on? Churned up like it had been harrowed. The thing is a wheeled cart would never have been practical on the Native American trails, most National Park trails (or the pig trails) but they'd have worked just fine in that horse trodden and eroded English trail. When I was a kid I was really good with a wheel barrow (hundreds of pounds of sloshing wet concrete, skinny 12 year old running it on a 2 x12 bridge over a trench?), and we made all kinds of devices. The only wheeled device we ever used, or thought to use on a trail - was a bicycle. Of course I eventually got a mountain bike. This makes me think another area of inquiry might be in China. They invented more types of wheel barrow than anyone else. Did they ever use them on their narrow trails?

[@premodernist_history]

Thanks for your comment. I would assume the Chinese used their wheelbarrows on their trails but I don't know for certain. I've been reading up on wheelbarrows for a possible future video but haven't come across the answer to that yet.

[@WillN2Go1]

@@premodernist_history if you're doing wheel barrows perhaps also consider the travois, or the Sioux word for a one person travois: wanjiksila (different word for a dog travois and a horse travois)

[@celisewillis]

That's so cool! Thanks for sharing

[@kingofthenorth8741]

Many ancient armies used wagons with wheels to carry the supplies. Who knows how different things would be if the romans didnt have such great supply logistics (and great capacity due to wheeled vehicles)

[@majungasaurusaaaa]

Mules were far more important than wagons. Next was water ways and sea. Wagons were the least of their logistics assets.

[@paulmentzer7658]

The main beast of burden for the Romans was the Ox, not the horse or mule. Furthermore the Romans preferred means of transport was by boat. A wagon hauled by Oxen could haul a ton of supplies, but even in Roman days, Roman Ships and Boats could haul 40 tons, over longer distances and quicker then any Ox, Horse, Mule or Camel.

[@williaminnes6635]

We're talking prior to the Marian Reforms or for resupply over longer marches here?

[@J-IFWBR]

yet the parthian camel logistic shreaded Crassus in Mesopotamia, with their infinite Arrow supply. Roads and Wagons are great in a moderate climate. If you face off your armys in the desert, camels are kinda op.

[@paulmentzer7658]

@@williaminnes6635 Julius Caesar preferred mules but every other Roman Army used Oxen hauling wagons (and first choice was by ship or boat). I think Caesar used mules for he relied on the Rhone and Seine rivers and it is easer to haul Mules by ship then Oxen. Caesar also crossed the Rhine (by building a bridge) and the English Channel, in both cases if ships were used (Caesar clearly use ships only crossing the Channel) it was a lot easier to get mules on and off those ships. Remember Caesar did not stay in Britain or Germany that long.

[@DavidGonzalez-tv2lf]

I love how the narration for the ending footage is intentionally a practical confirmation if the point vof the video

[@arseniclullaby]

Not having spent 2 minutes studying African history I can tell you that any amount of weight a camel can CARRY is exponentially LESS that what it could PULL with a cart with wheels, which means less camels to feed. and problems with sinking into the sand is by remedied by making wheels that are wide instead of narrow. They didn't make wheels because they didn't have an abundance of lumber ( a fact you also need not study Africa to know.) Did you...not...think of any of this? yeash.

[@binbows2258]

I can not believe blud just said there arent enough trees in africa to make wheels.

[@arseniclullaby]

@@binbows2258 XD you know what, that is MY fault for trying to word that in as brief a way as possible. First, this guy is talking about specific areas of Africa and I was referencing that when saying "Africa". Second I said "abundance of lumber" Yes they have trees, but not all trees are formed of wood that is the same in density, durability, ect. For example, you wouldn't make a pillar out of Balsa wood or use spruce to carve a statue. The trees in the region he's referring to are generally thin, soft and wiry as opposed to say a pine or an oak tree. There's a reason the world gets it's lumber from areas with cold and wet environments. It's because that is the type wood that is far better suited to build or fabricate from.

[@charlesm6823]

Interesting. Can you do a video on why they didn't have written language? And two-story building?

[@premodernist_history]

There were two-story buildings. I don't know much about the history of writing in Africa. I'm still a beginner in African history. Good idea for a video topic though.

[@NanakiRowan]

These can help you in the meantime, Charles. There were written languages as well as two-story buildings (as if that is even meaningful): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_systems_of_Africa en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Africa

[@EpicFilip]

@@NanakiRowan literally al of the languages you presented refer to north africa and arab colonies. All subsharan script is colonial or post-colonial. Why are you lying like this?

[@NanakiRowan]

@@EpicFilip I'm sorry, but Nsibidi was developed in Nigeria, which is sub-Saharan Africa. I'm also sorry that Ge'ez was developed in the Horn of Africa, which is also sub-Saharan Africa, by Ethiopians. I'm truly sorry that Adinkra was developed by Ghanaians in Ghana, which is sub-Saharan Africa. I'm even *more* sorry that Lusona was developed in Angola, which is sub-Saharan Africa. Also, whether or not any other languages were developed during colonial or post-colonial times is irrelevant, as they still were developed by sub-Saharan Africans and not by anyone else. I think that instead of lying about history, you should find a better coping mechanism, darling.

[@floridianman]

Just came across your page today, I like it I think you have a good thing going here. I like that your videos aren't an hour long either. You get straight to the point in less than a half hour

[@bldbar118]

5:49 The real reason wheel never took off? The scornful looks of the camels. 🐪 🐫 🐪

[@nullifye7816]

It's amazing what some people will convince themselves of to avoid facing harsh truths

[@bookerdewhaat1385]

If you don't have wheels, the countries with wheels get to name you.

[@anim8dideas849]

lol that explains why Eastern European nations have names from Arabs who had no wheels.

[@justsomeguywithamask1351]

Lmfaoo