Central American Toy figurines

[Bone2stone]

The specimen Wilson posted is a marvelous item to be sure.
It reminded me of something I was looking at the other day on line.
The Azteca people had developed something, that had it occurred to them, would have changed the face of the Americas in outstanding ways. (Wheels!)
Figurines with wheels often described as pull toys.
1st one is fired Clay (museum piece)
2nd one is a gold alloy (Wheels missing) private collection
3rd one is Onyx (I believe this too is a Museum piece)
[All presumed to portray Jaguars]

Sure would like to have one of these in my collection.

Jess B.

[G10+]

Wow I would like one of those two !! Wander the dating on these pieces ??

[2ndoldman]

Other than lamas and alpacas there were no appropriate "beasts of burden" for then to haul carts around Jess.
I guess that they could have been put to use but i doubt that it would have been widespread.
Those are very cool items though.
.

[Bone2stone]

Other than lamas and alpacas there were no appropriate "beasts of burden" for then to haul carts around Jess.
I guess that they could have been put to use but i doubt that it would have been widespread.
Those are very cool items though.
.

The "beasts of burden" input is true to a point, but appropriate use of the wheel could have made transporting heavier loads much easier than loading down their backs or dragging them.
I wonder how many millions of tons of earthen material has been moved through the millennials with a single wheeled hand truck.
Dogs could have been used for the smaller utilitarian transports. Such as a few containers of water, or perhaps some of the carcass of game or fish .......
Even human powered could have propelled progress at a faster pace than hauling material in , say baskets strung over their shoulders.
Earthen structures done in less than half the time..
Think of the potential and possibilities that would/could have been greatly enhanced.
The idea just never came to them to apply the wheel in a manner other than these type of toys.
BTW: There have been many more wheeled "toys" found, these are just a few of the more well known that I picked out.

Jess B

[Havenhunter]

It could be that the people who carved these toys may have lived in a terrain too rugged for wheeled conveyances. Unless one had a series of maintained roads, wheels would have been useful only in the city centers. Slaves were signs of status & not to be kept idle.The Egyptians had the wheel but chose human power for their largest construction projects.Development of transportation moved in strange ways in many cultures until the wheel as we know it was adopted universally.

[CMD]

Always a fascinating subject. Lack of suitable beasts of burden and terrains unsuitable for use of a wheeled conveyance are the two most common reasons offered for their absence in anything but toys. Some suggest, BTW, that the "toys" had "ceremonial" usage and were not actually toys. My wife has always offered the qualification that "when archaeologists cannot determine the function of an object, they offer the default explanation that it was "ceremonial". Here's another "Mickey Mouse on wheels", lol...

http://www.famsi.org/aztlan/uploads/Tula&wheeled_animal_effigies.pdf

[Sugaree]

Neat artifacts thanks for the show!