When did people start using roads?

We can thank the Pyramids of Giza for roads. They are an integral part of our built environment and have been an integral part of human existence for thousands of years. How they are built and used reveals much about our own modern societies and economies, but they can also provide an important window into the past.

But when did people actually start using roads? “The general and honest answer is that it’s really hard to know,” says Kalayci. “First of all, we need to be very clear about what we mean by ‘road’ – are we talking about a constructed road or a simple dirt track that has formed naturally with people and/or animals constantly walking along the same line? “

In the latter case, it can be argued more philosophically that as soon as people learned to walk and began to traverse the world from their African homelands, roads began to form – in short, a road can only be viewed as a line that people constantly walk along hike.

But Kalayci informs us that it was probably the ancient Egyptians who settled during the Old Kingdom period between 2600 and 2200 BC. Sometime between 2600 and 2200 B.C. “They basically wanted a nice, easy, straight route between the monument and the quarry that would allow for quick and efficient movement of materials,” he explains.

The caveat here is that archaeologists cannot be sure if anyone else pre-empted the ancient Egyptians. “The truth is that there might be evidence of roads that were paved in the past…we just haven’t found them yet,” admits Kalayci.

The ancient roads of Mesopotamia

Kalayci, a former Marie Curie fellow who worked on the GeoMOP project, focuses his research on Upper Mesopotamia, which consists of what is now southern Turkey, northern Iraq and Syria and is dominated by the mighty Euphrates and Tigris rivers. This largely flat region was the playground of some of the better known ancient civilizations, such as the Akkadians and Assyrians.

“The archaeological record shows that in ancient times this region became increasingly urbanized and due to changes in the economy and society, transportation became a much more important consideration,” says Kalayci. “Intense agriculture began to develop, and as a result they had to discipline their movement from towns to villages, from pastures to market. As a result, humans and animals walked the same paths, creating shallow depressions in the ground—known as ‘hollow paths’—that remain to this day.”

This was Kalayci’s focus during the GeoMOP project, where he used satellite imagery to map and map the network of ancient roads in the region.

In addition, it was his job to find out not only where the roads were, but also how they were used. “I needed to find out what the volume of traffic was along each route, and knowing that will give us a better picture of the region’s complex political economy.”

In general, roads have always held a certain appeal for Kalayci. “It’s a matter of personal curiosity, roads embrace the complexities of humanity very well. When you walk one, you can read, eat, get angry, meet strangers. Roads give interesting clues to the past, often found in archaeology be neglected. My work thus aims to make an apparently invisible human phenomenon just that little bit more visible.”