Steps towards the invention of the wheel had already begun thousands of years ago.Excellence Cluster TOPOI’s digital atlas shows the distribution of such innovation—the changes and developments in civilizations of the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea region during Antiquity—and thus the networks of the past. Read more in Svend Hansen, Jürgen Renn, Florian Klimscha, and Jochen Büttner. 2017. "Innovation: Wie das Rad erfunden wurde." Spektrum der Wissenschaft: Spezial Archäologie Geschichte Kultur: 50–53, which was published in cooperation with the Excellence Cluster TOPOI.