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Lasers Detect Roman Roads in Britain
#1
Lasers Detect Roman Roads in Britain
http://www.heritagedaily.com/2016/02/las...ads/109458

Quote:Lasers reveal ‘lost’ Roman roads

Quote:For decades after the 43AD invasion, a large region of the North (including Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cumbria) was controlled by a Celtic tribe known as the Brigantes. Tacitus writes that it was the collapse of the marriage between Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes, a Roman ally, and her husband Venetius that led to a showdown with Rome. Following their divorce, Venetius organised a revolt in 69AD and Cartimandua fled. The Emperor Vespasian then sent a force under Britain’s new governor, Quintus Petilius Cerialis, to put down the rebellion and conquer northern England. Building roads to link up forts and settlements across this rugged landscape was a vital part of this decades-long conquest of the North.


Beats digging up the countryside at random.
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#2
RE: Lasers Detect Roman Roads in Britain
LiDAR maps were made of Iowa and I have studied my locality and they are indeed amazing.

The Iowa dataset was collected when the leaves were off the trees so the trees are essentially erased from the maps. (note, this did not occur with evergreens which turn up as little cones on the maps)

Additionally, the processing of the data erased almost all the buildings. It is a curious effect, the interstate dirt work is clearly shown, but not the overpasses. My farm buildings are gone, but the flat sites prepared for them is shown.

IIRC, the Iowa LiDAR map has a data point (elevation) every 5 feet on a grid. The ability to discern elevation changes is around 4-5 inches. Fence rows, driveways, abandoned right of ways, old forgotten ditches, bulldozed farmsteads, and many other features are apparent.

The Iowa map can also be over laid with roads and some property lines. I found a long abandoned farm road on a hill slope near here that turned out to be aligned with the center line of an 80 acre parcel; this indicates that road was likely originally a fence row. Now overgrown, I'm hoping to clear it for ATV riding this summer.

The Iowa DNR website that contains the LiDAR maps, also has aerial photography going back to the 1930s also. it's an amazingly useful tool.

About the only actual problem I've noticed with the LiDAR map is that the aircraft that carried the equipment apparently wasn't high enough to allow the LiDAR beam to penetrate fully into some of the ravines around here because of the look angle. Percentage-wise, this is a very small area, but since it is mostly ravines and some cliffs/steep slope, the omissions are a little annoying, those examples being some interesting terrain here.

I also noticed a long and apparently deep trench in some wooded area very close to one of my fields. I went there, cut through the brush and overgrowth and found a long long abandoned county road. And as confirmation, an old county map does show a road in that exact location.

I can vouch for the usefulness of this technology, it is an amazingly powerful and useful tool. The Romans are going to lose MANY secrets.
 The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it. 




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#3
RE: Lasers Detect Roman Roads in Britain
If the Romans were so wonderful, how come they never got round to building roads in New Zealand? Huh? HUH?

Buncha slackers, those Romans.

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
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#4
RE: Lasers Detect Roman Roads in Britain
(March 8, 2016 at 1:47 am)Minimalist Wrote:



Beats digging up the countryside at random.

Baldrick respectfully disagrees.
Urbs Antiqua Fuit Studiisque Asperrima Belli

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#5
RE: Lasers Detect Roman Roads in Britain
I probably couldn't find it right now (think I got there by accident once or twice) but there is a map online somewhere of Iowa and by rolling around the mouse/pointer on the map, I could get accurate elevations.

This is a super handy tool also. I've noticed GPS devices, even my lamented Tom Tom, could not do elevations.  The map with that information is rally slick.

As for the Romans, realize when they were laying out the aqueducts, they also knew precise elevations over miles and miles too.  They accurately built their channels with a precise and consistent drop to supply water to their cities.  A rarely appreciated piece of technology they used were inverted siphons to cross valleys that were too deep for their aqueducts to cross overhead.  They were able to build lead pipes strong enough to withstand the pressure at the bottom of the valley.  Apparently one difficulty they were unable to engineer out of there systems was the calcium carbonate (hardness) that would precipitate out of the water.  In an open channel, or even a covered aqueduct by removing the stone over it, workers could get inside and descale the aqueduct.  This wasn't possible with their inverted siphons.  They had to use several pipes and they had to be disassembled to be cleaned out.

[Image: 37d%20Aqueduct%20siphon.jpg]
 The granting of a pardon is an imputation of guilt, and the acceptance a confession of it. 




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