Who invented the wheel? Scientists think they've finally answered the age-old question

The invention of the wheel has long been considered a major breakthrough in human history.

But now, the records may have to be rewritten – as the earliest evidence of wheel use has been pushed back 6,000 years.

The first examples of wheels currently date to at around 4000BC in Mesopotamia – modern-day Iraq – when the wheel shape was used for pottery.

Around 500 years later, during the Bronze Age, the first evidence of wheeled vehicle use was documented.

However, a collection of perforated pebbles from an archaeological site in Israel may represent a new key milestone in the development of rotational tools – including wheels – experts say.

More than a hundred of the mostly-limestone pebbles were unearthed at the Nahal-Ein Gev II dig site, featuring a circular shape perforated by a central hole.

They date back approximately 12,000 years.

Researchers believe these stones were likely used as spindle whorls – round, weighted objects that are attached to a spindle stick, allowing it to efficiently gather up fibres such as wool and spin them into yarn.

The experts, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, confirmed their theory by building replicas of the stones and successfully spinning flax using them.

This collection of spindle whorls represents a very early example of humans using rotation with a wheel-shaped tool, the team said.

Professor Leore Grosman, one of the study's authors, said: 'These perforated stones are actually the first wheels in form and function — a round object with a hole in the centre connected to a rotating axle, used long before the appearance of the wheel for transportation purposes.'

This early use, they believe, paved the way for future wheel-based rotational inventions such as the potter's wheel and the cart wheel.

'The most important aspect of the study is how modern technology allows us to delve deep into touching the fingerprints of the prehistoric craftsman, then learn something new about them and their innovativeness, and at the same time, about our modern technology and how we're linked,' the researchers said.

Their study, published in the journal Plos One, reads: 'The 'wheel and axle' revolutionized human technological history by transforming linear to rotary motion and causing parts of devices to move.

'While its ancient origins are commonly associated with the appearance of carts during the Bronze Age, we focus on a much earlier wheel-shaped find – an exceptional assemblage of over a hundred perforated pebbles from the 12,000-year-old Natufian village.

'We conclude that these items could have served as spindle whorls to spin fibres.'