Garfield by Jim Davis for March 05, 2012
March 04, 2012
March 06, 2012
Transcript:
Garfield: It's hard to keep up with all the scientific advances these days. Jon: The wheel is amazing! Garfield: Unless you're living with a visionary.
That still puts Jon ahead of some (cf. Wikipedia, “Wheel”):Although they did not develop the wheel proper, the Olmec and certain other western hemisphere cultures seem to have approached it, as wheel-like worked stones have been found on objects identified as children’s toys dating to about 1500 BC.7 It is thought that the primary obstacle to large-scale development of the wheel in the Western hemisphere was the absence of domesticated large animals which could be used to pull wheeled carriages. The closest relative of cattle present in Americas in pre-Columbian times, the American Bison, is difficult to domesticate and was never domesticated by Native Americans; several horse species existed until about 12,000 years ago, but ultimately went extinct, likely due to overhunting by newly-arrived humans.8 The only large animal that was domesticated in the Western hemisphere, the llama, did not spread far beyond the Andes by the time of the arrival of Columbus.So that’s what happened…