But sometimes, that rhetorical gadget is more literal than tongue-in-cheek.
This week, a team of researchers described early evidence for rotational technologies near the Sea of Galilee.
The team posits that the stones are 12,000-year-old spindle whorls, used to spin fibers into yarn.
Five experimental spindles and whorls experimented with by the team.Photo: Talia Yashuv
A wheel is only as good as its axle, of course.
If youve got a wheel but no axle, youre going nowhere fast.
Most importantly, we found out that perfectly round artifacts are not a prerequisite, the authors added.
The pebbles were certainly too small to be wheels, unless the ancient people were making model carts.
The spindle whorls predate the earliest known wheels by thousands of years.
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Neanderthal Faces Were Bigger Than Ours.
