ABSTRACT
The accelerating evolution of the human species—and of globalization—was helped along by the hominids' increasing capacity to make and use tools and by their growing ability to communicate with one another through mimesis and sound. In a region that is southern Russia, archaeologists have discovered and dated to around 3000 B.C. the earliest known wheels, relics of a globalizing invention that was to have innumerable uses, and so capture the human imagination that it often served as a symbol of all mobility. Agriculture was a great factor in biological globalization. As agriculture developed there it spread northward, and wheat, barley, peas, and beans were being grown in Turkey and Mesopotamia, with corresponding impacts on ecosystems and societies. Wheels, coupled with draft animals, led to the invention of carts for agriculture and trade, chariots for war, carriages for human transportation.
