From Bonita Ely, Sydney, Australia
Having given birth to a daughter whose size and weight increased over the years, necessitating the use of a pram, stroller, trolley, cart and motor vehicle, I have always suspected that women invented the wheel. This was reinforced by my daughter’s instinctive preference for any toy with wheels, and her invention of a skateboard carriage for her pet cat, Freckles (23 November, p 17).
The 12,000-year-old wheel-like stones resembling spindle whorls invented to spin thread, that you report on, would certainly have inspired overburdened women, during a further 6000 years, to develop wheeled vehicles.
