TL;DW: Waterways were preferred, if available. And the use of wheels requires stable ground, but also required draft animals until really not too long ago, so lots of folks just skipped the wheeled cart and strapped their goods directly to the draft animal.
Also, here’s a decent video on wheels not actually being all the rave throughout human history either: https://tube.kockatoo.org/w/82758fd3-6e61-42a9-80c7-462639cfc608
TL;DW: Waterways were preferred, if available. And the use of wheels requires stable ground, but also required draft animals until really not too long ago, so lots of folks just skipped the wheeled cart and strapped their goods directly to the draft animal.