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Noticed people calling every old stone wall a Roman road lately
Saw a post yesterday where someone claimed a random field boundary in Yorkshire was a Roman road just because it had a straight section. I've been digging foundations for 20 years and I've seen actual Roman road layers in cuts, they're unmistakable with that packed gravel base. Has anyone else noticed this trend getting worse?
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the_max1mo ago
Yeah I've definitely noticed that too. People get excited about a straight line and jump to conclusions. Real Roman roads are way more distinctive than just a straight stretch of ground.
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barbara_grant41mo ago
Ngl I've actually got to push back on that one. A lot of the Roman roads in Britain aren't these super obvious paved highways anymore, they've been built over and farmed for centuries. Lines on the ground from crop marks or straight hedgerows are often all that's left, and those are definitely Roman road signatures. Plus the sheer number of them across the UK matches up with the pattern of Roman settlement, not just random straight field boundaries. Tbh it's a bit dismissive to say people are jumping to conclusions when the evidence is way more solid than just a straight line.
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alicecraig1mo ago
Haven't you ever tried walking a suspected Roman road site with a shovel and a metal detector? I've done it a few times for fun, and it's how you tell the difference between a real road and an old field line. @barbara_grant4 is right that crop marks can be solid evidence, but you've still got to put in the legwork to prove it's Roman and not just some Victorian drainage ditch. Nothing beats actually digging a test pit and seeing those layers of compacted gravel and stone.
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