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80-582: The Sweet Track is an ancient trackway , or causeway , in the Somerset Levels , England, named after its finder, Ray Sweet. It was built in 3807 BC (determined using dendrochronology - Tree-ring dating) and is the second-oldest timber trackway discovered in the British Isles, dating to the Neolithic . The Sweet Track was predominantly built along the course of an earlier structure,

160-637: A lance 's width, about three metres, which the landholders through which the Hellweg passed were required to maintain. The Kulmer Steig is a byword for transport links from the Elbe valley over the eastern part of the Eastern Ore Mountains to Bohemian Chlumec u Chabařovic ( German : Kulm ). Archaeological finds suggest that this route existed in the Bronze ( c.  1800–750 BC ) and

240-518: A 200 mm (8-inch) thick pavement of sandstone blocks bound with clay - gypsum mortar , covered by a layer of basaltic flagstones and had separate shoulders . This road could be considered superior to any Roman road . The Via Pythia (or Pythian road) was the route to Delphi . It was revered throughout the Ancient Greek world as the site of the Omphalos stone (the centre of

320-459: A large sandbank in the southern North Sea. In 1998, Coles produced hypothetical maps of the area. Her 1998 book, Doggerland: a Speculative Survey , is described by the archaeologist Luc Amkreutz as "essential" to making Doggerland a serious subject of study. As well as research into Doggerland, Coles has also done extensive research into wetland archaeology , particularly in the Somerset Levels alongside her husband, John Coles . Their work with

400-712: A prehistoric causeway in the valley of the River Brue in the Somerset Levels , England, is one of the oldest known constructed trackways and dates from around 3800 BCE. The world's oldest known paved road was constructed in Egypt some time between 2600 and 2200 BC. The Romans were the most significant road builders of the ancient world. At the peak of the Roman Empire there were more than 400,000 kilometres (250,000 miles) of roads, of which over 80,000 kilometres (50,000 mi) were stone-paved. Another empire, that of

480-571: A range of local archaeological activities, and established the economic and geographic significance of various trackways from the third and first millennia BC. The work of John Coles, Bryony Coles , and the Somerset Levels Project was recognised in 1996 when they won the Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) Award for the best archaeological project offering a major contribution to knowledge, and in 2006 with

560-755: A reliable trading route running along chalk hills from the Dorset coast to the Wash in Norfolk . The high dry ground made travel easy and provided a measure of protection by giving traders a commanding view, warning against potential attacks. The Icknield Way follows the chalk escarpment that includes the Berkshire Downs and Chiltern Hills , in southern and eastern England, from Norfolk to Wiltshire . Other examples of historic roads in England include

640-546: A ridge of high ground at Shapwick close to the River Brue . A group of mounds at Westhay mark the site of prehistoric lake dwellings, which were likely to have been similar to those found in the Iron Age Glastonbury Lake Village near Godney , itself built on a morass on an artificial foundation of timber filled with brushwood, bracken , rubble, and clay . The remains of similar tracks have been uncovered nearby, connecting settlements on

720-407: A series of glacial eskers formed at the end of the last Ice Age , formed an elevated pathway from east to west, connecting Galway to Dublin . The Siberian Route ( Russian : Сибирский тракт , Sibirsky trakt ), also known as the "Moscow Highway" and "Great Highway", was a historic route that connected European Russia to Siberia and China . The construction of the road was decreed by

800-720: A target on the skyline. Examples include the Harrow Way and the Pilgrims' Way , running along the North Downs in southern England. The Harrow Way (also spelled as "Harroway") is another name for the "Old Way", an ancient trackway in the south of England, dated by archaeological finds to 600–450 BC, but probably in existence since the Stone Age . The "Old Way" ran from Seaton in Devon to Dover , Kent . Later

880-675: A water pumping and distribution system to maintain the wood in its damp condition. Some of the track is stored at the British Museum and at the Museum of Somerset in Taunton. A reconstruction has been made on which visitors can walk, on the same line as the original, in Shapwick Heath National Nature Reserve . In the early fourth millennium BC the track was built between an island at Westhay and

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960-508: Is filled with at least 2 metres (6.6 ft) of detritus mud. The two Meare Lake Villages within Meare Pool appear to originate from a collection of structures erected on the surface of the dried peat, such as tents, windbreaks and animal folds. Clay was later spread over the peat, providing raised stands for occupation, industry and movement, and in some areas thicker clay spreads accommodated hearths built of clay or stone. The track

1040-642: Is stained brown by tannins dissolved in the acidic water, and represents an early stage of fossilisation . The age of the track prompted large-scale excavations in 1973, funded by the Department of the Environment . In 1973 a jadeitite axehead was found alongside the track; it is thought to have been placed there as an offering. One of over 100 similar axe heads found in Britain and Ireland, its good condition and its precious material suggest that it

1120-637: Is today south-west Poland . See also the Via Regia Lusatiae Superioris . An important medieval German pilgrim route was the Via Tolosana (because the most important town along the way is Toulouse , France). This is one of the four medieval pilgrim routes described by Aimery Picaud in his 12th-century Pilgrim's Guide , used by pilgrims from southern and eastern Europe on the Way of St James to Santiago de Compostela . See also

1200-481: Is uncertain. Other samples of the track are held in the Museum of Somerset . Sections of the track have been designated as a scheduled monument , meaning that it is a "nationally important" historic structure and archaeological site protected against unauthorised change. These sections are also included in Historic England 's Heritage at Risk Register . Ancient trackway The Post Track ,

1280-576: The Incas of pre-Columbian South America , also built an extensive and advanced transportation system. Much later historic roads include the Red River Trails between Canada and the US, from the 19th century. Such pioneer trails often made use of ancient routes created by indigenous people . The Silk Road was a major trade route between China and India, Europe, and Arabia. It derives its name from

1360-585: The Iron Age (750 BC – early AD) and even in the Neolithic ( Stone Age c.  4500–1800 BC ) The Post Track and Sweet Track , causeways or timber trackways, in the Somerset levels , near Glastonbury , are believed to be the oldest known purpose built roads in the world and have been dated to the 3800s BC . The tracks were walkways consisting mainly of planks of oak laid end-to-end, supported by crossed pegs of ash , oak, and lime , driven into

1440-625: The London Institute of Archaeology and completing an MPhil in Anthropology at University College London . Coles became a lecturer in prehistoric archaeology at the University of Exeter in 1972. She was promoted to Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology in 1996 and when she retired in 2008 she was appointed professor emeritus . Her work studying Doggerland began in the 1990s. Coles named Doggerland after Dogger Bank ,

1520-624: The Long Causeway , a Medieval packhorse route that ran from Sheffield to Hathersage and The Mariners' Way in Devon. The latter was created by sailors in the eighteenth century, or earlier, travelling between the ports of Bideford and Dartmouth, Devon , who linked existing lanes, tracks and footpaths to form a direct route. In Aberdeenshire , Scotland , ancient tracks include the Causey Mounth , an ancient drovers' road over

1600-671: The Maurya Empire in 300 BC. Soon after, the Greek diplomat Megasthenes (c. 350 – c. 290 BC) wrote of his travels along the road to reach Hindu kingdoms in the 3rd century BC After invading India over 1,500 years later, Mughals extended the Grand Trunk Road westwards from Lahore to Kabul (the capital of Afghanistan) crossing the Khyber Pass . The road was later improved and extended from Calcutta to Peshawar by

1680-502: The National Heritage Memorial Fund , and installation of a water pumping and distribution system along a 500-metre (1,600 ft) section, several hundred metres of the track's length are now being actively conserved. This method of preserving wetland archaeological remains (maintaining a high water table and saturating the site) is rare. A 500-metre (1,600 ft) section, which lies within the land owned by

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1760-487: The Nature Conservancy Council , has been surrounded by a clay bank to prevent drainage into surrounding lower peat fields, and water levels are regularly monitored. The viability of this method is demonstrated by comparing it with the nearby Abbot's Way, which has not had similar treatment, and which in 1996 was found to have become dewatered and desiccated. Evaluation and maintenance of water levels in

1840-752: The Palatine Ways of St. James . The Wittemoor timber trackway is a log causeway or corduroy road across a bog at Neuenhuntdorf, part of the Berne in the district of Wesermarsch in Lower Saxony , Germany. Originating in the pre-Roman Iron Age , it is one of several such causeways which have been found in the North German Plain, particularly in the Weser-Ems region. It has been dated by dendrochronology to 135  BCE . It ran across

1920-470: The Post Track . The track extended across the now largely drained marsh between what was then an island at Westhay and a ridge of high ground at Shapwick , a distance close to 1,800 metres (5,900 ft) or around 1.1 mi. The track is one of a network that once crossed the Somerset Levels . Various artifacts and prehistoric finds, including a jadeitite ceremonial axe head, have been found in

2000-496: The River Trent and a submerged forest at Stolford enabled a fuller mapping of the rings, and their relationship with the climate of the period. The wood used to build the track is now classed as bog-wood , the name given to wood (of any source) that for long periods (sometimes hundreds of thousands of years) has been buried in peat bogs, and kept from decaying by the acidic and anaerobic bog conditions. Bog-wood usually

2080-473: The gallery roads , consisting of wooden planks erected on wooden or stone beams slotted into holes cut into the sides of cliffs. The roads join three adjacent basins separated and surrounded by high mountains. Like many ancient road systems, the Shu Roads formed a network of major and minor roads with different roads being used at different historical times. However, a number of roads are commonly identified as

2160-663: The geography of the region. In the early Middle Ages , people often preferred to travel along elevated drainage divides or ridgeways rather than in the valleys. This was due to thick forests and other natural obstacles in valleys. The Amber Road was an ancient trade route for the transfer of amber from coastal areas of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean Sea . Prehistoric trade routes between Northern and Southern Europe were defined by

2240-593: The peat bog ; they include the Honeygore, Abbotts Way, Bells, Bakers, Westhay, and Nidons trackways. Sites such as the nearby Meare Pool provide evidence that the purpose of these structures was to enable easier travel between the settlements. Investigation of the Meare Pool indicates that it was formed by the encroachment of raised peat bogs around it, particularly during the Subatlantic climatic period (1st millennium BC), and core sampling demonstrates that it

2320-466: The ridgeways in England. By using this route rivers were avoided, or fords used, close to the rivers sources. Over time by this route was improved with paved fords, embankments and bridges. Concentrations of mounds, defensive ditches, settlements and other historic landmarks can be found along the road and sections of it can be traced back to 4000 BC. Roman roads were physical infrastructure vital to

2400-574: The British rulers of colonial India . For many centuries, the road has acted as a major trade route and facilitated travel and postal communication. The Grand Trunk Road remains under use for transportation in India. The Khyber Pass was an all-season mountain pass connecting Afghanistan to western Pakistan . Brick-paved streets appeared in India as early as 3000 BC. Except for Roman roads , European pathways were rarely in good shape and depended on

2480-706: The European Archaeological Heritage Prize. Dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) of the timbers has enabled precise dating of the track, showing it was built in 3807 BC. This dating led to claims that the Sweet Track was the oldest roadway in the world, until the discovery in 2009 of a 6,000-year-old trackway built in 4100 BC, in Plumstead , near Belmarsh prison . Analysis of the Sweet Track's timbers has aided research into Neolithic Era dendrochronology; comparisons with wood from

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2560-475: The Great (Darius I) of the first ( Achaemenid ) Persian Empire in the 5th century BCE. Darius built the road to facilitate rapid communication throughout his very large empire from Susa , Syria to Sardis , Turkey . It is claimed that some of the earliest roads were created by humans who followed already existing paths made by animals, and, in particular, that trails created by the herds of buffalo shaped

2640-783: The Levant and the Ancient Near East. From the Black Sea , trade could continue to Asia along the Silk Road . Hærvejen (Danish, meaning "the army road") ran from Viborg, Denmark through Flensburg (in the present northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein ) to Hamburg . The road runs more or less along the watershed of the Jutland Peninsula, known as the Jyske Højderyg (Jutland Ridge), similar to

2720-660: The Shapwick Heath Nature Reserve involves the Nature Conservancy Council, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs , and the Somerset Levels Project. Although the wood recovered from the Levels was visually intact, it was extremely degraded and very soft. Where possible, pieces of wood in good condition, or the worked ends of pegs, were taken away and conserved for later analysis. The conservation process involved keeping

2800-600: The Somerset Levels Project resulted in the establishment of a new branch of archaeology focusing on wetlands and in 1998, they received the Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) Award for the best archaeological project offering a major contribution to knowledge. Coles began also studying the European beaver after realising that a series of distinctive marks on preserved wood found in the Somerset Levels were made by beavers and not humans as first assumed. She mapped out

2880-695: The Tsar two months after the conclusion of the Treaty of Nerchinsk , on 22 November 1689, but it did not start until 1730 and was not finished until the mid-19th century. Previously, Siberian transport had been mostly by river via Siberian River Routes . First Russian settlers arrived in Siberia by the Cherdyn river route which was superseded by the Babinov overland route in the late 1590s. The town of Verkhoturye in

2960-662: The Urals was the most eastern point of the Babinov Road. The much longer Siberian route started in Moscow as the Vladimir Highway (a medieval road) and passed through Murom , Kozmodemyansk , Kazan , Perm , Kungur , Yekaterinburg , Tyumen , Tobolsk , Tara , Kainsk , Tomsk , Yeniseysk and Irkutsk . After crossing Lake Baikal the road split near Verkhneudinsk . One branch continued east to Nerchinsk while

3040-719: The Wittemoor bog, connecting the more elevated geest at Hude with the River Hunte . An Iron Age settlement near a spring in the Lintel section of Hude was at the southern end. A section of the trackway has been reconstructed. Built somewhat later, the Wittmoor Bog Trackways are two historic trackways discovered in Wittmoor in northern Hamburg . The trackways date to the 4th and 7th century AD, both linked

3120-409: The X shapes to form the walkway. In some places a second rail was placed on top of the first one to bring the plank above it level with the rest of the walkway. Some of the planks were then stabilised with slender, vertical wooden pegs driven through holes cut near the end of the planks and into the peat, and sometimes the clay, beneath. At the southern end of the construction smaller trees were used, and

3200-577: The activities of beavers in Brittany for around 5 years so that she could learn how to see signs of beavers in the environment and to help differentiate between beaver and human activity in any future archaeological sites. Coles was married to John Coles from 1985 until his death in 2020. They established The John and Bryony Coles Bursary in 1998. The bursary was created to help students who are travelling outside of their own country to study or work in prehistoric archaeology. On 27 November 1975, Coles

3280-452: The amber trade. As an important commodity, sometimes dubbed "the gold of the north", amber was transported overland by way of the Vistula and Dnieper rivers to the Mediterranean area from at least the 16th century BC. The breast ornament of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen (ca. 1333–1324 BC) contains large Baltic amber beads. The quantity of amber in the Royal Tomb of Qatna, Syria, is unparalleled for known second millennium BC sites in

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3360-498: The area) was donated to the British Museum in London. Although this short section can be assembled for display purposes, it is currently kept in store, off site, and under controlled conditions. A reconstructed section was displayed at the Peat Moors Centre near Glastonbury . The centre was run by the Somerset Historic Environment Service, but was closed in October 2009 as a result of budget cuts imposed by Somerset County Council . The main exhibits are extant, but future public access

3440-416: The capital at Nara or Kyoto . Later, Edo was the reference, and even today Japan reckons directions and measures distances along its highways from Nihonbashi in Chūō, Tokyo . The Grand Trunk Road in the Indian subcontinent was the main road from modern day Bangladesh , through what is now India , Pakistan and Afghanistan . A route since antiquity, it was constructed into a coherent highway by

3520-413: The coastal fringe of the Grampian Mountains and Elsick Mounth , which was one of the few means of traversing the Grampian Mounth area in prehistoric and medieval times. Roman legions marched along the Elsick Mounth. In Roman Britain , many trackways were built upon by the Romans to form the foundations for their roads . Prior to this, people used trackways to travel between settlements but this

3600-434: The conventional date for the origins of the Silk Road by at least two millennia. See also the Northern Silk Road , the Southern Silk Road: Through Khotan , Tea Horse Road . The Shudao ( Chinese : 蜀道 ; pinyin : Shǔdào ), or the "Road(s) to Shu", is a system of mountain roads linking the Chinese province of Shaanxi with Sichuan (Shu), built and maintained since the 4th century BC. Technical highlights were

3680-402: The earth and universe). The Sacred Way ( Ancient Greek : Ἱερὰ Ὁδός , Hierá Hodós ), in ancient Greece , was the road from Athens to Eleusis . It was so called because it was the route taken by a procession celebrating the Eleusinian Mysteries . The procession to Eleusis began at the Sacred Gate in the Kerameikos (the Athenian cemetery) on the 19th Boedromion . In the present day,

3760-427: The eastern and western shores of the formerly inaccessible, swampy bog. A part of the older trackway No. II dating to the period of the Roman Empire is on display at the permanent exhibition of the Archaeological Museum Hamburg in Harburg, Hamburg . Hellweg was the official and common name given to main travelling routes medieval trade route through Germany. Their breadth was decreed as an unimpeded passageway

3840-487: The eastern part of the Harrow Way become known as the Pilgrims Way , following the canonisation of Thomas Beckett and the establishment of a shrine in Canterbury , Kent . This pilgrimage route ran from Winchester , Hampshire , via Farnham , Surrey , to Canterbury Kent . The western section of the Harrow Way ends in Farnham, the eastern in Dover. The Ridgeway similarly keeps to high ground and for at least 5,000 years travellers have used it. The Ridgeway provided

3920-425: The even more ancient system of Yamato government called Gokishichidō . This was the name for ancient administrative units and the roads within these units, organized in Japan during the Asuka period (AD 538–710), as part of a legal and governmental system borrowed from the Chinese. Many highways and railway lines in modern Japan follow the ancient routes and carry the same names. The early roads radiated from

4000-401: The islands in the bog was sufficiently pressing for them to mount the enormous communal activity required for the task of stockpiling the timber and building the trackway, presumably when the waters were at their lowest after a dry period. The work required for the construction of the track demonstrates that they had advanced woodworking skills and suggests some differentiation of occupation among

4080-425: The landscape over millennia. Improvements in metallurgy meant that by 2000 BC stone-cutting tools were generally available in the Middle East and Greece allowing local streets to be paved. Notably, in about 2000 BC, the Minoans built a 50 km (31-mile) paved road from Knossos in north Crete through the mountains to Gortyn and Lebena , a port on the south coast of the island, which had side drains,

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4160-421: The last decades of the 19th century, when it was superseded by the Trans-Siberian Railway (built 1891–1916), and the Amur Cart Road (built 1898–1909). The contemporary equivalent is the Trans-Siberian Highway . Streets paved with cobblestones appeared in the city of Ur in the Middle East dating back to 4000 BC. The Royal Road was an ancient highway reorganized and rebuilt by the Persian king Darius

4240-416: The lucrative trade in silk carried out along its length, beginning in the Han dynasty (207 BCE–220 CE). The Han dynasty expanded the Central Asian section of the trade routes around 114 BCE through the missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial envoy Zhang Qian . The Chinese took great interest in the safety of their trade products and extended the Great Wall of China to ensure the protection of

4320-509: The main routes. Kaidō ( 街道 , road ) were roads in Japan dating from the Edo period (between 1603 and 1868). They act important roles in transportation like the Appian way of ancient Roman roads. Major examples include the Edo Five Routes , all of which started at Edo (modern-day Tokyo ). Minor examples include sub-routes such as the Hokuriku Kaidō and the Nagasaki Kaidō . Kaidō , however, do not include San'yōdō , San'indō , Nankaidō and Saikaidō , which were part of

4400-657: The maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire . They ranged from small local roads to broad, long-distance highways built to connect cities, major towns and military bases. These major roads were often stone-paved and metaled, cambered for drainage, and flanked by footpaths, bridleways and drainage ditches. They were laid along accurately surveyed courses, and some were cut through hills, or conducted over rivers and ravines on bridgework. Sections could be supported over marshy ground on rafted or piled foundations. At

4480-441: The other went south to the border post of Kyakhta where it linked to camel caravans that crossed Mongolia to a Great Wall gate at Kalgan . In the early 19th century, the route was moved to the south. From Tyumen the road proceeded through Yalutorovsk , Ishim , Omsk , Tomsk , Achinsk and Krasnoyarsk before rejoining the older route at Irkutsk. It remained a vital artery connecting Siberia with Moscow and Europe until

4560-517: The peak of Rome's development, no fewer than 29 great military highways radiated from the capital, and the late Empire's 113 provinces were interconnected by 372 great roads. The whole comprised more than 400,000 kilometres (250,000 miles) of roads, of which over 80,000 kilometres (50,000 mi) were stone-paved. In Gaul alone, no less than 21,000 kilometres (13,000 mi) of roadways are said to have been improved, and in Britain at least 4,000 kilometres (2,500 mi). The courses (and sometimes

4640-450: The peat bogs along its length. Construction was of crossed wooden poles, driven into the waterlogged soil to support a walkway that consisted mainly of planks of oak , laid end-to-end. The track was used for a period of only around ten years and was then abandoned, probably due to rising water levels. Following its discovery in 1970, most of the track has been left in its original location, with active conservation measures taken, including

4720-420: The pegs suggest that they were taken from coppiced woodland. Longitudinal log rails up to 6.1 metres (20 ft) long and 7.6 centimetres (3.0 in) in diameter, made of mostly hazel and alder , were laid down and held in place with the pegs, which were driven at an angle across the rails and into the peat base of the bog. Notches were then cut into the planks to fit the pegs, and the planks were laid along

4800-421: The planks split across the grain to utilise the full diameter of the trunk. Fragments of other tree species including holly , willow , poplar , dogwood , ivy , birch , and apple have also been found. The wetland setting indicates that the track components must have arrived prefabricated , before being assembled on site, although the presence of wood chips and chopped branches indicates that some trimming

4880-416: The predecessor of France, and East Francia became that of Germany. The Old Salt Route or Alte Salzstraße of the Hanseatic League was a medieval trade route in northern Germany that transported salt from Lüneburg to Lübeck . The Rennsteig is a ridgeway and an historical boundary path in the Thuringian Forest , Thuringian Highland and Franconian Forest in Central Germany . It

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4960-438: The road from central Athens to Aegaleo and Chaidari (the old route to Eleusis) is called after the ancient road. The Corlea Trackway is an ancient road built on a bog consisting of packed hazel, birch and alder planks placed lengthways across the track, and occasional cross timbers for support. Other bog trackways or "toghers" have also been discovered dating to around 4000 BC. The Corlea trackway dates from approx 148 BC and

5040-465: The rocks, and, by the easiest of grades, over or around hills". Bryony Coles Bryony Jean Coles , FBA , FSA (born 12 August 1946) is a prehistoric archaeologist and academic. She is best known for her work studying the large area of land submerged beneath the North Sea around 8000 years ago and naming it Doggerland . Coles was born in 1946. She studied at Bristol University before completing her postgraduate degree at

5120-446: The routes taken first by indigenous peoples and then colonists, especially in North America: However, Frank G. Roe disputes this theory – and its wider application – in "The 'Wild Animal Path' Origin of Ancient Roads". Some suggest that the portage routes of North American indigenous peoples followed "the game trails the animals had made around rough water. ... [And] as centuries passed, well-trodden paths were made, winding among

5200-411: The separate localities to the camp meeting places and cross-country flint roads. Others were more likely to have been processional ways, such as the one leading to the gigantic temple at Avebury in Wiltshire. On British hills, the line of tracks often run a little below the actual crest of a ridge , possibly to afford some shelter from the wind or to avoid travellers presenting themselves to marauders as

5280-408: The surfaces) of many Roman roads survived for millennia; some are overlaid by modern roads. Francia or the Frankish Empire was the largest post-Roman Barbarian kingdom in Western Europe . It was ruled by the Franks during Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages . It is the predecessor of the modern states of France and Germany . After the Treaty of Verdun in 843, West Francia became

5360-420: The trade route. Prior to the Silk Road an ancient overland route existed through the Eurasian Steppe . Silk and horses were traded as key commodities; secondary trade included furs, weapons, musical instruments, precious stones (turquoise, lapis lazuli, agate, nephrite) and jewels. This route extended for approximately 10,000 km (6,200 mi).  Trans-Eurasian trade through the Steppe Route precedes

5440-486: The underlying peat. and were used to link the fen islands across the marshes . The Lindholme Trackway is later and dates to around 2900–2500 BC. It fits within a trend of narrowing width and increased sophistication during the third millennium BC. Some argue that this shift could relate to the growing complexity of wheeled transport at the time. Tracks provided links between farmsteads and fields, other farmsteads, and neighbouring long barrow tombs. They also joined

5520-423: The wood in heated tanks in a solution of polyethylene glycol and, by a process of evaporation, gradually replacing the water in the wood with the wax over a period of about nine months. After this treatment the wood was removed from the tank and wiped clean. As the wax cooled and hardened, the artefact became firm and could be handled freely. A section of the track on land owned by Fisons (who extracted peat from

5600-528: The wood may be influencing the peat's hydrology , causing the loss or collection of minerals within the pore water and peat matrix. The community that constructed the trackway were Neolithic farmers who had colonised the area around 3900 BC, and the evidence suggests that they were, by the time of construction, well organised and settled. Before this human incursion, the uplands surrounding the levels were heavily wooded, but local inhabitants began to clear these forests about this time to make way for an economy that

5680-642: The workers. They also appear to have been managing the surrounding woodland for at least 120 years. Built in 3807 or 3806 BC, the track was a walkway consisting mainly of planks of oak laid end-to-end, supported by crossed pegs of ash , oak, and lime , driven into the underlying peat. The planks, which were up to 40 centimetres (16 in) wide, 3 metres (120 in) long and less than 5 centimetres (2.0 in) thick, were cut from trees up to 400 years old and 1 metre (39 in) in diameter, felled and split using only stone axes, wooden wedges, and mallets. The length, straightness, and lack of forks or branches in

5760-654: Was a connecting road between small independent states in Thuringia . The route crosses the Thuringian Forest and the slate mountains of Thuringia and Franconian Forest , stretching from Hörschel at the river Werra (near Eisenach ) to Blankenstein at the river Saale . It is part of the European long-distance paths network. The Via Regia (king's road) is a medieval road that ran from Frankfurt am Main to Görlitz in Lower Silesia, in what

5840-536: Was a symbolic axe, rather than one used to cut wood. Because of the difficulty of working this material, which was derived from the Alpine area of Europe, all the axe heads of this type found in Great Britain are thought to have been non-utilitarian and to have represented some form of currency or be the products of gift exchange. Radiocarbon dating of the peat in which the axe head was discovered suggests that it

5920-442: Was deposited in about 3200 BC. Wooden artefacts found at the site include paddles, a dish, arrow shafts, parts of four hazel bows, a throwing axe , yew pins, digging sticks, a mattock , a comb, toggles, and a spoon fragment. Finds made from other materials, such as flint flakes, arrowheads, and a chipped flint axe (in mint condition) have also been made. A geophysical survey of the area in 2008 showed unclear magnetometer data;

6000-487: Was discovered in 1970 during peat excavations and is named after its finder, Ray Sweet. The company for which he worked, E. J. Godwin, sent part of a plank from the track to John Coles , an assistant lecturer in archaeology at Cambridge University , who had carried out some excavations on nearby trackways. Coles' interest in the trackways led to the Somerset Levels Project, which ran from 1973 to 1989, funded by various donors including English Heritage . The project undertook

6080-589: Was excavated in 1994. It is the largest trackway of its kind to be uncovered in Europe. Ireland's prehistoric roads were minimally developed, but oak-plank pathways covered many bog areas, and five great 'ways' ( Irish : slighe ) converged at the Hill of Tara . An ancient avenue or trackway in Ireland is located at Rathcroghan Mound and the surrounding earthworks within a 370m circular enclosure. The Esker Riada ,

6160-530: Was in daily use as part of the farming life of the community. Since its discovery, it has been determined that parts of the Sweet Track were built along the route of an even earlier track, the Post Track , which was constructed thirty years earlier in 3838 BC. Most of the track remains in its original location, which is now within the Shapwick Heath biological Site of Special Scientific Interest and National Nature Reserve . Following purchase of land by

6240-417: Was performed locally. The track was constructed from about 200,000 kilograms (440,000 lb) of timber, but Coles estimates that once the materials were transported to the site, ten men could have assembled it in one day. The Sweet Track was used only for about ten years; rising water levels may have engulfed it, and therefore curtailed its use. The variety of objects found alongside the track suggest that it

6320-422: Was predominately pastoral with small amounts of cultivation. During the winter, the flooded areas of the levels would have provided this fishing, hunting, foraging and farming community with abundant fish and wildfowl; in the summer, the drier areas provided rich, open grassland for grazing cattle and sheep, reeds, wood, and timber for construction, and abundant wild animals, birds, fruit, and seeds. The need to reach

6400-722: Was unsuitable for the swift movement of troops and equipment. Mastiles Lane was a Roman marching road and later an important route for monks leading sheep from Fountains Abbey to summer pasture on higher ground. Also known as the Old Monks' Road, this is now a Dales walking track. The existence of ley lines and their relationship with ancient trackways was first suggested in 1921 by the amateur archaeologist Alfred Watkins , in his books Early British Trackways and The Old Straight Track . Watkins theorized that these alignments were created for ease of overland trekking on ancient trackways during neolithic times and had persisted in

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