I wanted to make a list that tells us about the history of some of the things in life that we take for granted. We all know who invented things like the telephone and the television, but we don’t know when or how the staples of life were invented or discovered. So, here is a list of 10 things we take for granted and the history of their use. With the exception of one item (the wheel) the rest come to us from the Paleolithic era. This list is ordered from most recent to oldest.

10. The Wheel5,000 BC

The Sumerian “Battle Standard of Ur” – Ca. 2600 BC

The wheel probably originated in ancient Sumer (modern Iraq) in the 5th millennium BC, originally in the function of potter’s wheels. The wheel reached India and Pakistan with the Indus Valley Civilization in the 3rd millennium BCE. Near the northern side of the Caucasus several graves were found, in which since 3700 BC people had been buried on wagons or carts (both types). The earliest depiction of what may be a wheeled vehicle (here a wagon—four wheels, two axles), is on the Bronocice pot, a circa 3500 BC clay pot excavated in southern Poland. What is particularly interesting about the wheel, is that wheels only occur in nature in the microscopic form, so man’s use of the wheel could not have been in mimicry of nature. It is worth noting, however, that the rolling motion of the wheel is seen in certain animals that manipulate their bodies into the shape of a ball and roll. The wheel reached Europe and India (the Indus Valley civilization) in the 4th millennium BC. In China, the wheel is certainly present with the adoption of the chariot in ca. 1200 BC.

9. Twisted Rope17,000 BC

Ancient Egyptian’s Making Rope

The use of ropes for hunting, pulling, fastening, attaching, carrying, lifting, and climbing dates back to prehistoric times and has always been essential to mankind’s technological progress. It is likely that the earliest “ropes” were naturally occurring lengths of plant fiber, such as vines, followed soon by the first attempts at twisting and braiding these strands together to form the first proper ropes in the modern sense of the word. Fossilised fragments of “probably two-ply laid rope of about 7 mm diameter” were found in Lascaux cave, dating to approximately 15,000 BC. The ancient Egyptians were probably the first civilization to develop special tools to make rope. Egyptian rope dates back to 4000 to 3500 B.C. and was generally made of water reed fibers. Other rope in antiquity was made from the fibers of date palms, flax, grass, papyrus, leather, or animal hair.

8. Musical Instruments50,000 BC

Prehistoric Bone Flute

The first known music instruments were flutes. The flute appeared in different forms and locations around the world. A three-hole flute made from a mammoth tusk, (from the Geißenklösterle cave in the German Swabian Alb and dated to 30,000 to 37,000 years ago), and two flutes made from swans’ bones excavated a decade earlier (from the same cave in Germany, dated to circa 36,000 years ago) are among the oldest known musical instruments. The flute has been dated to prehistoric times. A fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, with two to four holes, found at Divje Babe in Slovenia and dated to about 43,100 years ago, may also be an early flute. Some early flutes were made out of tibias (shin bones). Playable 9000-year-old Gudi (literally, “bone flute”), made from the wing bones of red-crowned cranes, with five to eight holes each, were excavated from a tomb in Jiahu in the Central Chinese province of Henan.

7. The Boat60,000 BC

Fragments of a Log Boat

Archaeological evidence indicates that humans arrived on New Guinea at least 60,000 years ago, probably by sea from Southeast Asia during an ice age period when the sea was lower and distances between islands shorter. The ancestors of Australian Aborigines and New Guineans went across the Lombok Strait to Sahul by boat over 50,000 years ago. Evidence from ancient Egypt shows that the early Egyptians already knew how to assemble planks of wood into a watertight hull, using treenails to fasten them together, and pitch for caulking the seams. The “Khufu ship”, a 43.6 m long vessel sealed into a pit in the Giza pyramid complex at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Giza in the Fourth Dynasty around 2,500 BC, is a full-size surviving example which may have fulfilled the symbolic function of a solar barque.

6. Pigments400,000 BC

Cave Paintings in Zimbabwe

Naturally occurring pigments such as ochres and iron oxides have been used as colorants since prehistoric times. Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that early humans used paint for aesthetic purposes such as body decoration. Pigments and paint grinding equipment believed to be between 350,000 and 400,000 years old have been reported in a cave at Twin Rivers, near Lusaka, Zambia. Before the Industrial Revolution, the range of color available for art and decorative uses was technically limited. Most of the pigments in use were earth and mineral pigments, or pigments of biological origin. Pigments from unusual sources such as botanical materials, animal waste, insects, and mollusks were harvested and traded over long distances. Some colors were costly or impossible to mix with the range of pigments that were available. Blue and purple came to be associated with royalty because of their expense.