Yeah, it kinda makes you wonder… they clearly knew but AFAIK didn’t bother using it for anything but such toys.
Wheeled carts are not very practical without draught animals to pull them. And the one place they had animals like that, in South America, llamas and the civilizations that utilized them lived in the mountains where wheeled carts aren’t practical either.
Yeah, that is a common theory, but wheel-barrows are extremely useful and have been even utilized for long distance travel: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese-wheelbarrow.html
I don’t know that you could necessarily develop the wheelbarrow without first having the concept of the wheeled cart.
Most American natives devolped their societies without much need for the wheel in a similar way that most European’s societies devoloped without much need for kayaks or river travel.
I disagree about river travel. In Europe, rafts were more common because of the large animals. It’s nearly impossible to cross the Seine with a horse in a canoe. But on a raft, you can do it. Entire civilizations migrated using major rivers in Europe, on rafts. And later, barges. Pretty much every major city is built on a river for a reason.
Hell, they’d cut the trees down on the river banks on either side and lash ropes to horses walking on either bank and pull things upstream that way. Huge things.
One possible reason for this is the lack of useful draft animals. Even with a cart a person can’t move much more than they can carry, especially across rough terrain. You’ll note that the wheel wasn’t developed in the west until after the domestication of oxen and horses, and since they had both died out in the Americas there wasn’t anything strong enough to pull the carts.
For carrying large amounts of cargo native Americans would use a travois, which could be dragged behind a person or dog or, eventually, a horse.
