Hacker News Reader

The wheel isn't that useful if you live on terrible terrain and have nothing to drive it with.

llamas and alpacas

Not great beasts of burden. Barely better than dog with travois, arguably worse than having an extra human to carry things.

Llamas were used for some logistics, but they're not the most sturdy, modern Llamas can carry around ~40kg but I'm unsure if it would've been higher or lower with the breeds they used back then. Either way, better than nothing, but definitely no horse.

I live on a hilly plot and use a wheelbarrow or cart all the time in the summer.

they did invent the wheel, they just didnt use it for transportion.

Yes they did, they had wheeled toys. They just didn't have a use for the wheel for transportation because of poor terrain, lack of pneumatic tires, and a lack of beasts of burden.

Everyone gets caught up in the wheel thing, but how many people have tried rolling a non-pneumatic tire loaded with weight up mountains or even just across broken terrain? We still got people carrying fridges and shit on their back up mountains in Nepal because wheels are still not useful on that terrain. Not to mention something we think of as old like the wagon wheel is the culmination of over 1000 years of innovation.