Straight tracks lock

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sam S
sam Jan 8, 2006 20:32:38
Replying to PeterH

I totally agree with you - I have always thought that the romans just imporoved and adapted the trackway system that was already there. We are still carrying on this process now - if we build a motorway (say, the A1M at the devils arrows) than we follow the existing route, but build bigger.

And if you were building a monument, then you'd build it where people would see it, from the road. I've just been looking at the map for penmaenmawr - burial chambers, standing stones, circles - all next to an old trackway from the axe factory. This trackway then became a roman road, with a roman fort below it.

http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&X=274000&Y=372000&width=700&height=400&gride=272138.935638447&gridn=376183.294316003&srec=0&coordsys=gb&db=freegaz&addr1=&addr2=&addr3=&pc=&advanced=&local=&localinfosel=&kw=&inmap=&table=&ovtype=&keepicon=true&zm=0&scale=25000&left.x=5&left.y=144

sam

P PeterH
PeterH Jan 8, 2006 20:49:05
Replying to sam

That illustrates it perfectly. The monuments follow the road. In your example, where the land is hilly, the route must follow the terrain and so straight lines will not be apparent. Elsewhere, straight routes can be seen for very many miles. Textbook version is that Roman surveyors were the only people capable of surveying straight lines over long distances and did so through virgin forest and featureles moors. Yet I can show straight tracks in eastern England that have long barrows, henges, round barrows and hillforts alongside. All were in place and served by the trackways long before the Romans took them over. Now, of course, we have done the same and turned them into stagecoach routes and then A class trunk roads.

M moss
moss Jan 9, 2006 07:38:18
Replying to sam

Hi, I think that Somerset shared quite a lot of what was happening in the southern part of Wales, the only thing is we just lost a lot of our stuff along the way. High ground was the only place to settle in some parts, prehistoric trackways reflect this. The west entrance of the Littledown fort focuses (the original prehistoric track) on a pass between two ranges of hill that point to the south coast of Wales, in fact you can see the Bristol channel and the sea on a clear day.
FWs post, that circles did,nt dominate is probably right, but you have only to look at Grays Hill above probably another pass, looking down at the later Caerwent and the famous Caerlon to find the interconnecting pattern of settlement..... and
if you look at the following photo by Eternal, its pretty obvious that we all travel the same way..
http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/post/42951
track through pass, its boundary/territory?/ settlement area , and modern road.. highlighted by barrows.