Previous Next

Added December 1997. Updated November 19, 2008.


The earliest evidence of wheeled transport in Europe and the Near East.

A wheeled model from the Late Uruk site Jabel Aruda (Syria), 4500-4400 bp (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 indirectly dated 4800-4700 bp. A TRB pot with wagon motifs from Bronocice (Poland) is 4725±50 bp (GrN-19612), although seven C-14 dates (DIC) of the same Bronocice III phase yield 4610-4440 bp. The GrN date 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).

Editor’s note:

The current calibration of the Bronocice III (GrN-19612): 4725±50 bp date with with OxCal v3.10 Bronk Ramsey (2005) and atmospheric data from Reimer et al (2004) yields:

  68.2% probability

    3630BC (26.5%) 3560BC

    3540BC (16.4%) 3490BC

    3440BC (25.3%) 3370BC

  95.4% probability

    3640BC (58.3%) 3490BC

    3470BC (37.1%) 3370BC

 

Dr. Jan Albert Bakker

Vakgroep Europese Archeologie

Amsterdam University

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

University of Groningen

Poststr. 6

9712 ER Groningen

Netherland



Dr. Sarunas Milisauskas

Anthropology Department

380 MFAC ~ SUNYAB

Buffalo, NY 14261-0005.

USA

Tel. (716) 645-2414 smilis@acsu.buffalo.edu

 

 

Previous Next

 

Please send comments or questions to Max Baldia.