I would argue axels came first, and the wheel is a derivative. See the likely methods accepted by (non ancient alien) archeologists for paleolithic to bronze age wonders made from stone; they used logs on the ground as rollers, essentially an axel, it wouldn’t take much of a leap to carve out the majority of those logs to lighten the load, creating a fixed wheel axel, which just needs a semipermanent but smooth rolling attach point to a vehicle or tool to be even more useful.
When I say axle (that is the correct spelling for this, according to a quick search, FYI), I mean it has a stationary bearing in which it turns. So what you’re calling a “semipermanent but smooth rolling attached point”. A roller is a completely different simple machine with no sliding surfaces.
I would argue axels came first, and the wheel is a derivative. See the likely methods accepted by (non ancient alien) archeologists for paleolithic to bronze age wonders made from stone; they used logs on the ground as rollers, essentially an axel, it wouldn’t take much of a leap to carve out the majority of those logs to lighten the load, creating a fixed wheel axel, which just needs a semipermanent but smooth rolling attach point to a vehicle or tool to be even more useful.
When I say axle (that is the correct spelling for this, according to a quick search, FYI), I mean it has a stationary bearing in which it turns. So what you’re calling a “semipermanent but smooth rolling attached point”. A roller is a completely different simple machine with no sliding surfaces.