This isn't true... is it?

>>1827193
I think they lacked the more advanced infrastructure that would have made a wheel useful. They would have had enough contact with outsiders to adopt it if it were useful.

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Btw, why didnt Sub-Saharan Africa ever develop or invent the wheel
It's been a while since we last had this thread

what would you use a wheel for in the fucking jungle?!

>>1827311
moving carts on the roads you built through the jungle using the axes you made, bulled by the zebras you domesticated.

>>1827368
>Zebras
>Domesticate

Lol no

>>1827311
>for in the fucking jungle?!
Not all of Africa is jungle, ever heard of the Savannah?
OP, maybe it had something to do with Tsetse flies and, yes, the environment. But I dunno.

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>see UNICEF ad claiming that Africans in X nation don't have any clean water and it's filled with bacteria and parasites so they need our money to buy clean water
>apparently Africans don't even know how to cook water to kill off any vermin like cavemen did around twelve thousand years ago
This isn't true... is it?

>>1827311
>le africa is all jungle maymay

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>>1827985
Zebras could be domesticated just like horses with enough selective breeding.

>>1828025

>inb4 tame =/= domesticate

taming is the first step.

everything else is a risky investment but it could hypothetically be done

I'd bet an ideal end product would be smaller and more intelligent.

>>1828025
>>1828116
http://www.thomsonsafaris.com/blog/taming-zebras-domestication-attempts/

>>1827193
The Wheel was invented once in Ukraine, idk why people talk about it like it's a big deal.

People were smelting metals before they discovered the wheel.

>>1827311
only africans that actually live in the jungle are pygmies

>>1828307
Basically some guy's uninformed opinion.

>zebras evolved in africa, where there are predators
>unlike horses which evolved in europe
>where there are no humans
>so animals from africa are afraid of people in a way animals from europe aren't
Full retard.

In single generations it was shown that you could get zebras to do what horses were used for thousands of years- pull carriages or chariots. This is a great achievement and indicative that they could be really domesticated, not just socialised and trained.

>>1828409
>In single generations it was shown that you could get zebras to do what horses were used for thousands of years- pull carriages or chariots. This is a great achievement and indicative that they could be really domesticated, not just socialised and trained.

The issue is that this single generation of zebras could only be tamed with 20th century technology and knowledge rather than the stone age equipment and information available when the horse was first domesticated. It doesn't prove anything about the ability of the zebra to be domesticated.

>>1828116
Except that's wrong. Horses have always been suitable animals for domestication, being relatively docile and having an easily exploitable family structure. This is evidenced by the only true wild horse alive today, Przewalski's horse. It has never been domesticated and thus has not been bred to be better for humans. While domesticated horses aren't descended from it, they are very closely related, much more so than they are to zebras. These wild horses exhibit behaviors conductive to domestication. Firstly, their first instinct when in danger is to run, not to fight, unlike the more aggressive zebra, which makes them much safer to be around. The horses also form into permanent family groups of a lead male, a few mares, and their foals. While zebra's are similar in this, their groups are not permanent and only last for a few years, making it more difficult to manage. Zebras are also just more stubborn and difficult to work with, similar to a donkey.

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I think the most reasonable explanation is that with a few exceptions (such as the Sumerians) wheeled transport was spread around Eurasia mostly by chariot-riding steppe nomads. They brought chariots, and hence the wheel, to Western Europe, China, India and most of the Middle East, and then the wheel spread from those places to other closely connected areas like Southeast Asia (from India) and North Africa (from the Levant). In the age of chariots most of sub-Saharan Africa didn't have much close cultural connection with the rest of the world, except in places like Nubia where the wheel actually was used. When sub-Saharan Africa (specifically West Africa) did open up to Eurasia/North Africa cultural influence in the Middle Ages chariots had already fallen out of use in warfare.

People overestimate how 'obvious' wheel based technologies really are. Europeans for example have been using chariots since the bronze age, but didn't invent the wheelbarrow until the 12th century AD.

>>1828470
Regardless of whether or not zebras can be domesticated, something people tend to ignore is that horses were only domesticated around 3500 BC, about three thousand years after agricultural populations started living around horses. On the other hand, agricultural populations only came into contact with zebras around 500 BC, about two and a half thousand years ago.

So, even if zebras could be domesticated (and I'm not saying they could), it hardly makes sense to complain that it never happened considering Eurasians only accomplished the same thing over a longer time frame than Africans ever had.