"[The customers] had a tendency to stop shopping when the basket became too full or too heavy."
Sylvan N. Goldman, businessman
The origins of the cart are inextricably linked to the invention of the wheel. In fact, one theory of how the wheel was invented suggests that the cart and the wheel were developed simultaneously, inspired by earlier bladed sledges that were dragged across logs.
The earliest sources of evidence for wheeled vehicles are Mesopotamian tablets. Although the dating methods used for these artifacts are not exact, the tablets are known to be from the middle of the fourth millennium B.C.E. Around the same time there is also evidence for wheeled vehicles in Europe, including wheel tracks at a long barrow near Kiel, Germany, and wagon pictographs found on a beaker at Bronocice, Poland. This has led archeologists to debate whether wheeled vehicles were developed in multiple places simultaneously or whether the technology quickly diffused out of Mesopotamia.
Carts have been in continuous use since their inception, evolving over time to incorporate wheels with spokes and suspension springs for added comfort. However, the invention of the automobile, and to some extent the railroad, has undoubtedly led to the cart's decline as a mode of transport.
Today carts take all sorts or shapes and functions, from traditional horse-drawn carts, through rickshaws and tuk tuks to the electric-powered gojfcart. And we must not forget the ubiquitous shopping cart (or trolley), invented in 1937 in Oklahoma, United States, by Sylvan Goldman, who wanted to make it easier for his customers to buy more groceries from his chain of Piggly-Wiggly supermarkets.
