wrote in message
oups.com...
(ahem...) Getting back to central american civilization and turning...
A friend noticed I was into turning and gave me what he described as a
"chocolate stirer" he said was used by the Mexicans, and the Aztecs
before them to stir their chocolate. A spindle turning, it looks sort
of like a fluted ball on the end of a stick, with some decoration.
About 10" long and 1-1/2" diameter at the ball. The friend said he got
it a Disneyland in 1955, where he watched a Mexican gentleman hand turn
this piece in minutes with nothing more than a block of wood with a
depression in it (tailstock) held between his feet, a stringed bow
(headstock) and some kind of tool which he kept sharp by "grinding" on
the cement he sat on. Wasn't clear what he used for a tool rest, if
any, or how he juggled all the pieces while turning, wish I'd been
there to see it. So a wheel is not required to turn wood.


Woman who works with my wife at the college brought one of those chocolate
stirring devices back from Mexico for me, because she knew I was a turner.
Elaborately burned and perforated on the one I have.
The turning itself is both wheel and axle in the circumstance. The rotary
motion about an axis or axle needed to define a wheel is there, though it is
also clear that this component of two of the Greeks' four fundamental
machines was not developed, or if developed, not documented in Amerind
cultures.

I'll stick with the AHD, where " wheel (hw¶l, w¶l) n. 1. A solid disk or a
rigid circular ring connected by spokes to a hub, designed to turn around an
axle passed through the center. 2. Something resembling such a disk or ring
in appearance or movement or having a wheel as its principal part or
characteristic, as: a. The steering device on a vehicle. b. A potter's
wheel. c. A water wheel. d. A spinning wheel. ...."

The evidence for drought cited is only part of the picture. Populations
decline to the level the food supply, which includes the available game, can
support, then rise again with the food supply. Clearly this did not happen
in this case. I'll stick with disease and/or warfare over available
resources as the actual nail in the coffin. Most sources I've seen make a
good deal of the fact that a static population easily decimates the
undomesticated fauna within the distance required to sortie forth, kill, and
bring back anything resembling edible high-quality protein. Fairly short
distance in the tropics.