Central Asian Science
Because people in Central Asia often talked to people from West Asia, Europe, and China, they were able to bring together inventions from all of these places and put them to new uses, or combine them in new ways. But people in Central Asia also invented a lot of new things on their own.
The earliest invention that we know of from Central Asia was sewing. People in Central Asia seem to have started to sew clothes about 45,000 BC, and to have invented sewing needles about 40,000 BC.
About 4000 BC, people in Central Asia domesticated the horse, but at first horses were too small to ride. It was probably people in Central Asia who first added wheels to sledges to make carts for the horses to pull, about 3700 BC. The wheel reduced friction and made it possible for the horses to pull heavier loads. People took the idea of wheels from early pottery wheels in West Asia. The first wheels were made of solid wood, and may have seemed more obvious in the north where there were more trees, and on the flat grasslands where a cart could move more easily. Soon people in West Asia and China began to use wheeled carts too.
When people in Central Asia began to ride horses, about 2500 BC, they also invented the composite bow, a kind of bow and arrow that was shorter, so you could shoot it while you were riding your horse. Around the same time, they also domesticated camels to ride.
Earliest known spoked wheels, from a grave in western Siberia
By 2000 BC, the people of Central Asia had improved on the wheel by also inventing the spoked wheel. Wheels with spokes were stronger and lighter and used less wood than solid wheels. Again, this new invention spread quickly south to China and to the Indo-Europeans, and then with them to Greece and Italy and even further south to Egypt, West Asia, and India.
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(a project)
Sometime around 1000 BC, Central Asian archers invented the recurve bow, which was shaped like a W, and could shoot further with a shorter bow, which was also easier to use while you were riding your horse. Then around 200 BC, people in Central Asia invented saddles and stirrups for their horse equipment, making it much easier to ride and fight from horses. Around 800 AD, Central Asian farmers may also have invented the horse collar, which made it possible to use horses to plow fields.
Although many Central Asian inventions have to do with horses, by the year 1000 AD Central Asian people were also using boats, and Russian boat-builders invented an early ice-breaker boat, the koch. The koch had a rounded body under the water so it wouldn't be wrecked if it hit ice, and also had ice-resistant wood planking at the waterline.
To find out more about Central Asian history, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:
Tales
Told in Tents: Stories from Central Asia
by Sally Pomme Clayton (2000). For kids.
Empire Of The Mongolians, by Michael Burgan (2005). Young adult.
