Transportation in Archaeology
Silk Road Cities
The cities that make up the nodes of the vast Silk Road have many things in common including an ancient history made of control by many competing cultures.
Khmer Road System
Between the 9th and 13th century AD, the Khmer Empire built an extensive road system to shuttle economically important raw material and finished goods around its vast country.
Khmer Empire Water Management System
The Khmer Empire, also known as the Angkor civilization, were compelled to manage water through a complex of man-made canals and reservoirs, the result of which was to permanently alter the local hydrology.
Chaco Road System (US)
One of the most fascinating and intriguing aspects of Chaco Canyon is the Chaco Road, a system of roads radiating out from many great house sites such as Pueblo Bonito, Chetro Ketl and Una Vida, and leading towards small outlier sites and natural features within and beyond the canyon limits.
Rest Houses and Way Stations
guesthouses and weigh stations are important part of any reasonably sophisticated road system. Here are a few of my favorite, from Roman, Inca, and Mesopotamian civilizations
Abbots Way (UK) - Neolithic Trackway of Abbots Way
Abbot's Way is a Neolithic trackway, first built about 2000 BC as a footpath to cross a lowland mire in the Somerset Levels and Moors wetland region of Somerset, England.
Causeways
A causeway is an early form of transportation system, consisting of a narrow, man-made earthen or rock structure that bridged a waterway.
Northwest Coast Dugout Canoes
Northwest Coast dugout canoes were a form of Early Native American navigation along the Pacific Northwest coast
Chinchawas, Peru
Chinchawas is a small village site, part of the Recuay polity, located on a known transportation route between the coast and the highlands in northern Peru.
Corlea Trackway, Ireland
Corlea Trackway is an Iron Age roadway that measures one kilometer long and four meters (12 feet) wide, and was built of massive oaken planks
Ancient Roads
Ancient road systems represent transportation networks built hundreds or thousands of years ago to sustain empire building, trade and cultural connections.
Dahomey's Royal Road - Cana-Abomey Road
The Cana-Abomey Road was built in the 18th century by the West African kingdom of Dahomey in what is today the country of Benin.
Eel Point (California)
Eel Point is a paleo-coastal archaeological site located on the central western shore of San Clemente Island, a Channel Island located off the California coast.
Egnatia Way
The Egnatia Way (or Via Egnatia) was a major Roman thoroughfare, built in the second century BC as a military road connecting the southern Adriatic coast to the northern Aegean sea.
Inca Roads
Part of American Public Broadcasting's NOVA series on the Ice Mummies of the Inca, a page and images on the Inca road system.
Merv Oasis (Turkmenistan)
The Merv Oasis was a stop on the ancient Silk Route between China and the west during the early Iron Age.
Roman Roads (Viae Publicae)
Roman roads (called Viae Publicae in Latin) were an extremely important construction project for imperial Rome, as they allowed for communication and control of the vast Roman empire throughout Europe
Sarup (Denmark)
The site of Sarup in southwest Funen in Denmark contains two Neolithic causewayed enclosures dated to the 4th millennium BC, one belonging to the Funnel Beaker culture and one to the Klintebakke phase.
Trans-Pacific Connections
Two recent articles contain strong evidence of the possibility of some type of contact between the cultures of Polynesia and South or Central America in the centuries before the landings of Spanish and Portuguese explorers.
Silk Road
The Silk Road is the name given to a network of trade routes crossing Asia, first used during the Han Dynasty.
Sweet Track (England)
Sweet Track is the name given to the earliest known trackway in northern Europe, built, according to tree ring analysis of the wood, in the winter or early spring of 3807 or 3806 BC.
Traditional Navigation in the Western Pacific
Investigations by anthrpologists Steve Thomas and Warren Goodenough, and master navigator Mau Piailug, into ancient Polynesian sailing techniques.
The Royal Road of the Achaemenids - The Royal Road
The Royal Road was a major intercontinental thoroughfare built by the Achaemenid king Darius the Great (521-485 BC)
Transportation
Transportation--building roads, canals, viaducts, and carts, boats, ships to travel on them--is an early important invention of humans for ancient daily life.
Wheeled Vehicles
The invention of the wheel to assist transportation was made in Uruk, Mesopotamia during the fourth millennium BC.
Windmill Hill (United Kingdom)
Windmill Hill is a Neolithic causewayed enclosure, located near the far more famous site of Avebury in Wiltshire, England.