The Earliest Wheeled Transport [antikvár]

ForewordOne single invention of outstanding importance to all human societies was the wheeled vehicle which first appeared at the end of the fourth millennium bc. In this book I have attempted a study of the relevant archaeological evidence, considered in terms of the adoption and adaptation of this vehicle over a specific period of time and a clearly defined geographical area. This covers Europe and western Russia, running from the Atlantic to the Caspian Sea, and the three thousand years from the time of the original invention to the establishment of the Roman Empire.My interest in prehistoric wheeled vehicles was largely developed as a result of Cyril Fox's work on the La Tene chariot remains in the Llyn Cerrig Bach find, published in 1946, at a time when I was trying to interpret the references to chariotry in the Sanskrit Rig Veda as part of a study of prehistoric India. His enthusiastic support and cooperation encouraged me to go further, as did Gordon Childe, concerning himself at that time with the origins of wheeled transport in the Old World. A third distinguished archaeologist no longer with us was Terence Powell, that perceptive student of ancient chariotry and horsemanship, who travelled with me in more than one part of Europe and contributed greatly to my understanding of later European prehistory. In the preparation of the book in its present form over the last few years I owe an outstanding debt of gratitude to Mrs Mary Aitken Littauer, who has so generously shared with me her unrivalled knowledge and sound judgment of the reahties of animals and vehicles in antiquity.So far as the differing nature of the evidence allows (with, for instance, the paucity of representational art north of the Alps), it is hoped that this study may form a complementary survey to that of Mrs Littauer and T. Crouwel (1979a) for the ancient Near East. With a few exceptions it takes account of published and unpublished material known and accessible to me to June 1981. In a wide survey such as this accidental omissions are not easy to avoid, and for these I offer my apologies: they would have been more numerous had it not been for the willing co-operation of fellow scholars thoughout Europe. The failure, however, of not a few individuals and institutions to reply to enquiries has led to gaps in information which I have been unable to fill.In a synthesis necessarily based on the work of others, my debt to numberless colleagues here and abroad is obvious. In this country I am particularly grateful to Pro-ressor Warwick Bray, who guided me in the Mesoamerican sources; to Mr David and Dr Francesca Ridgway for their critical comments on the draft of much of Chapter 5