The evolution of cars

Cars play an extremely important role in the history of human progress. There are three main materials for prehistoric cars: objects, models (made of pottery and copper) and patterns (including rock paintings). At present, the earliest cars in the world appear in the Middle East and Europe.

In the two river basins in the Middle East, Sumerians entered the civilization era during the Uluk culture period. On the clay tablets during the Uruk culture period, hieroglyphics representing cars appeared. Judging from these words, the car at that time was four-wheeled.

1974, a wheel model made of chalky soil was found in Arruda, Syria, with a diameter of 8 cm and a thickness of about 3 cm, dating back to the Uruk culture period.

There are protruding hubs on both sides of the wheel. From the overall model, it should be a wheel model, which is also the earliest wheel model in the Middle East. This model is now in the Archaeological Museum in Aleppo, Syria.

In addition, a wheel model made of clay was unearthed in Arslantepe, eastern Turkey, with a diameter of about 7.5 cm, which is equivalent to the period of Uruk culture. This wheel model also has protruding wheels on both sides.

1989, there were three wheels in a grave found in Flintbeck, Germany. Inferred from these marks on the wheels, the distance between the two wheels is 1. 1 m to 1.2 m. ..

The corrected age of these wheel marks is from 3650 BC to 3400 BC, belonging to the funnel beaker culture of Neolithic Europe.

A piece of broken pottery with a height of about 10cm was found in Bronaugh, southern Poland. The age is about 3530-3365,438+00 BC, which also belongs to the funnel neck pottery culture. These cars have the same style, all with four wheels, single axle and Y-axle.

At that time, it was mainly cattle pulling carts. On a prehistoric tombstone in Loen, there are two oxen pulling carts. The two cows are put on a yoke, which is connected with a shaft, and the end of the shaft is a D-shaped carriage.

The age of this painting is about 4000 BC. Trough pottery of the same era was found in Radosina, Slovakia, with a width of about 10 cm and a residual length of about 10 cm.

This device indicates that two cows are pulling a car. In Klaz, Poland. Nick. Kreznica Geri also found a ceramic handle, which dates back to the late 4000 BC. This handle is made in the shape of a pair of animals (maybe cows) with yokes. They should also be able to pull carts.

As can be seen from the above, the basic style of early European cars was four-wheeled, single-axle, and pulled by two animals. This kind of wheel model, which belongs to the late 4000 BC, has also been found in Hungary and other parts of Europe.

In short, cars in the late 4000 BC have been found in the two river basins of Central and Eastern Europe, which is also the earliest known car in the world.

The original birthplace of the automobile, most people think that the earliest automobile was probably invented somewhere in the above-mentioned areas (especially in the two river basins) and then spread around. There are also a few people who think that cars were invented independently in Europe and the two river basins.

In 2004, researchers from the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, while excavating Erlitou site, found two roughly parallel rut marks between the early road of the main road on the south side of the palace area and the soil.

The rut in the excavation area is more than 5 meters long and continues to extend eastward and westward. The rutted frog is groove-shaped, which can be seen as concave, showing layered accumulation of road soil and lime soil. The distance between two frogs is about 1 meter. The rut of Xia Dynasty discovered at Erlitou site in Yanshi, Henan Province pushed the history of automobile use in China to about 3,700 years ago.

Extended data:

The development of carriage:

The domestication of horses first occurred in Neolithic Eastern Europe. Although the domestication of horses was nearly a thousand years earlier than the appearance of automobiles, for a long time, it was mainly cows rather than horses that pulled carts. This is because horses and cattle have different characteristics.

Because the early cars were relatively heavy, it was suitable to be pulled by cows, because cows had strong endurance but slow speed. Chinese and foreign history shows that ox carts are mainly used to transport goods, while horse-drawn carriages are mainly used for war and hunting.

The development from ox cart to carriage is actually a major change in automobile performance, that is, the main purpose of automobile is to change from heavy load to high-speed operation, which requires a series of technical improvements, such as lowering the body to reduce weight, mainly using two-wheeled vehicles to solve the turning problem, and so on; Of course, the most important thing is to improve the wheel, that is, to replace the solid wheel with a spoke wheel.

A basic feature of spoke wheel is that the rim and hub are connected by many spokes. Some rims are made of one batten, and some are made of two semi-circular or semi-arc battens through hidden tenons.

The solid wheel is cut from thick logs, while the rim of the spoke wheel is made of tough small shrubs bent by fire. Therefore, the radial wheel is not a simple improvement of the solid wheel, but actually a major technological innovation.

Because the rim is made of wood strips, it has the greatest bearing capacity from the texture of wood strips. In this way, compared with solid wheels, radial wheels are not only lighter in weight, but also more elastic and suitable for high-speed operation. Later, people nailed metal (copper or iron) nails on the rim, or wrapped the metal outer edge to make the rim more durable.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Automobile (Transportation)