Added December 1997. Updated November 28, 2000.
A wheeled model from the Late Uruk site Jabel Aruda (Syria), 4500-4400 bp (GrN, uncalibrated) and wagon pictographs of Uruk IV are the earliest proof of wheeled vehicles in the Near East. A cart-rut below a TRB megalithic tomb at Flintbek (Germany) is dated 4800-4700 bp. A TRB pot with wagon motifs from Bronocice (Poland) is dated 4725 bp (GrN), but seven C-14 dates (DIC) of the same Bronocice III phase yield 4610-4440 BP. The GrN dates and the Flintbek age seem to suggest that wheeled vehicles were invented in Europe together with the ard, ox-team and yoke, not in the Near East. But the data are still scarce and the BR III DIC-dates raise interesting questions. (For complete article see: The earliest evidence of wheeled vehicles in Europe and the Near East. Antiquity 73, 1999:778-790)
Dr. Jan Albert Bakker
Vakgroep Europese Archeologie
Nieuwe Prinsengracht 130
1018 VZ Amsterdam
Netherland
Tel. +31 20 525 5811 / 5830, secipp@ivip.frw.uva.nl
Dr. Janusz Kruk
Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii
Polskiej Aakademii Nauk
ul. Slawkowska 17
31-016 Kraków
Poland
Drs. A. E. Lanting
Vakgroep Archeologie
Poststr. 6
9712 ER Groningen
Netherland
Dr. Sarunas Milisauskas
380 MFAC ~ SUNYAB
Buffalo, NY 14261-0005.
USA
Tel. (716) 645-2414 smilis@acsu.buffalo.edu
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