Sure; I'm arguing that the leap necessary between wheels and gears isn't really all that huge. A gear is basically just a wheel–regardless of whether you think it's a separate invention or not it's not really that impressive as going from nothing to the wheel.

A gear is a lever which uses a wheel to apply continuous leverage - I would say using wheels as force multipliers is a considerable jump in cleverness than just using them to roll around

Gears provide mechanical advantage -- i.e. gear ratio.

So do two wheels of different sizes.