The Origins of the Wheelbarrow
M. J. T. Lewis
unknown in Europe before roughly A.D. 1200, whereas China it had been used, asJoseph Needham shows, since perhaps the 1st century B.c.' Just how Western vehicle came about has matter for speculation. Along with Needham, Bertrand Gille and Andrea Matthies wonder if was a case of stimulus diffusion-of westerners hearing at several removes, via Islam or Byzantium, Chinese man-powered one-wheeled cart interpreting concept after their own fashion.2 Lynn White, Albert Leighton, suggest that also inspired by two-man handbarrow-which general circulation very long time-since, substituting wheel front man, number laborers needed could be halved. Leighton alternatively surmises somebody maneuvering two-wheeled hand conceived idea man-sized small loads, which would easier to manipulate only one wheel. Less convincingly, because difference size, proposes wheelbarrow may have adapted from broken wagon. The comes two basic forms. best known
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