Combining Historical Maps, Travel Itineraries and Least-Cost Path Modelling to Reconstruct Pre-Modern Travel Routes and Locations in Northern Tigray (Ethiopia)

Hardt, Jacob; Nir, Nadav; Schütt, Brigitta

doi:10.1080/00087041.2022.2150363

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

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“…In landscape-archaeology, the majority of attempts to track down possible prehistoric routes have focused on Least Cost Path (LCP) analysis, or archaeological finds (i.e., pottery, installations, stone tools) discovered along specific routes (Yekutieli, 2006;Schild, 2016;Hardt et al, 2023b), rather than pedogenic or geomorphological evidence. In micro-and geo-archaeology, paved or wheeled-driven tracks have often been investigated using construction materials and micromorphological residues as proxies (Tsokas et al, 2009;Charbonnier and Cammas, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The environmental footprint of Holocene societies: a multi-temporal study of trails in the Judean Desert, Israel

Nir,

Davidovich,

Ullman

et al. 2023

Front. Earth Sci.

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The global distribution of footpaths and their inferred antiquity implies that they are widespread spatial and temporal anthropogenic landscape units. Arid environments are of special interest for investigating historically used footpaths, as older routes may preserve better due to minimal modern impact and slower pedogenic processes. Here we examine footpaths in the Judean Desert of the southern Levant, a human hotspot throughout the Holocene. We studied one modern and two archaeological footpaths (one attributed to the Early Bronze Age and one to the Roman period) using micromorphology, bulk samples laboratory analysis, and remote sensing. Field observations and color analysis indicate that footpaths in the studied arid limestone environment can result in brighter surface color than their non-path surroundings. Similar color changes are reflected using both laboratory analysis and high-resolution remote sensing, where the difference is also significant. Microscopically, the footpaths studied tend to be less porous and with fewer biogenic activities when compared to their non-path controls. However, the two ancient footpaths studied do exhibit minimal indicators of biogenic activities that are not detectable in the modern footpath sample. Our study shows that high-resolution remote sensing coupled with micromorphology, while using appropriate local modern analogies, can help to locate and assess both the environmental effect and the antiquity of footpaths.

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