Ancient roads found by satellite

CHICAGO -- University of Chicago archaeologists using recently declassified satellite surveillance images have discovered that subtle depressions in land in Syria and Iraq are the remains of 5,000-year-old roads.

The ancient thoroughfares were important for commerce in the ancient Near East as local settlements expanded and came into contact with people from southern Mesopotamia, according to Tony Wilkinson and Jason Ur of the university's Oriental Institute.

Better routes emerged in the third millennium B.C. and these ancient roads were abandoned, the researchers said. Over the centuries, the roadways faded, leaving only slight depressions, and were mostly overlooked by archaeologists.

According to Ur and Wilkinson, the roadways were 200 to 400 feet across and were first formed by people herding livestock. Constant traffic eventually hardened the surface and caused the roadways to sink into the landscape.

In a paper to be published in the spring issue of the journal Antiquity, Ur wrote that rather than just connecting towns and nearby settlements, these ancient roads can be viewed as segments of larger highways running through the region.

Archaeologists previously thought that roads had run between major settlements in straight lines, but now they can see how the ancient routes meandered between settlements.

Ur said the way the road systems connected with one another suggests the people of the time had "a far more integrated agricultural economy than originally recognized."