re: Sure, the wheel was a great invention, but it seems such obvious technology

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that it's hard to be impressed with its necessary mindpower.... sort of like discovering that fire can help keep you warm.

For my money, the invention of the alphabet is a more sublime human achievement. That unknown Phoenician who first realized that a sound could be represented with a scribble on a piece of parchment, and then that a group of scribbles could represent a word, and then that a string of those groups could represent an entire dialogue or story.... that stuff was never obvious, and that guy has my immense admiration.

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I'll give you one better. The Neolithic Revolution, the use of agriculture and domestication of animals, was much more important to the formation of civilization than the wheel.