The wheel was invented quite a few times, actually, and a lot later than most people think. “Cavemen” would have had little use for it; it wasn’t until humanity began constructing with stone and timber that the transport of heavy materiel became a daily necessity.

To be strict, the very first inventor of the wheel resided in the cool foothills of what would someday be known as Haute-Savoie, in France. She climbed a precarious boulder, found it tumbling away beneath her, and became an example for so much future human interaction with technology: running, running, going backward all the way.