Good luck with making your own wheel or rope from scratch (i.e. alone and naked in the woods)!
The twisting bit takes some finesse, and obviously you won't be making nylon rope with your bare hands, but making a grass rope is child's play.
Making a wheel, once you have the concept of a wheel, is pretty damn easy too. If you want a stone wheel, take a large stone and chip away until it resembles a wheel. If you want a wooden wheel, take a large piece of wood and whittle away until you have a wheel.
The saying that 'hindsight is 20/20' would seem to be particularly true at the scale of early human invention and civilization.
Good luck with making your own wheel or rope from scratch (i.e. alone and naked in the woods)!
Wheels are almost useless in dense forests that have no roads, for obvious reasons. So why would anyone waste a day or two making one?
> take a large piece of wood and whittle away until you have a wheel
This does not resemble the actual construction of any but the smallest wooden wheel for toys.
The first used wheel bas probably some vague round stone with a hole it it.
It sucked, but it was better than no wheel.
However, alone, you CAN make rope. It's painful, but you can.
You can't invent the press alone. You need ink, paper, metal, and people being able to put it in shape for you.
Everybody had access to plants to make rope. Not everybody had access to the money, education, market and knowledge necessary to invest the press.
Now today, it's even worst.