
How 2,000-year-old roads predict modern-day prosperity - lazydon
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/08/06/how-year-old-roads-predict-modern-day-prosperity/
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dzdt
Alternate hypothesis: locations 2000-year-old cities predicts modern day
prosperity.

And also locations of 2000-year-old cities predicts locations of 2000-year old
roads -- uncontroversial I think.

The proposed mechanisms are (1) cities are stable on millenial timescales,
continuing to develop and attract wealth (2) geography is stable on millenial
timescales, so the places where wealth-attracting cities tend to be located
are the same then as now.

Contra (2), there has been a shift in importance of different transportation
networks and energy sources. The roads discussed in the article are
transportation network, but waterways historically have been even more
important. And more recently rail networks as well. The shift from water to
coal to grid-distributed electricity has loosened the connection of energy to
geography.

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mcphage
> And also locations of 2000-year-old cities predicts locations of 2000-year
> old roads

The article claims the correlation is the opposite of what you stated—roads
were built, and _then_ cities built up around them. From the article:

> “Roman roads were often constructed in newly conquered areas without any
> extensive, or at least not comparable, existing network of cities and
> infrastructure,” Dalgaard and his colleagues write. In many instances, the
> roads came first. Settlements and cities came later.

~~~
jakamau
Then how about "Only 2,000 year old cities that were prosperous maintained
their roads to survive until today"

> the Roman roads in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) weren’t
> maintained the same way they were in Europe...

> The correlation between ancient roadways and modern-day development so
> prevalent in Europe is much smaller and less significant for the Middle East
> and North Africa.

~~~
jacobolus
I wonder how much of that can be attributed to using camels to get around vs.
horses & carts, with roads less necessary/helpful for commerce/transportation.

~~~
bobthepanda
Most of North Africa and MENA's population centers are located near the coast
or major navigable rivers (namely, the Nile). River and sea transport is much
cheaper than land transport, even today. Why maintain a bunch of expensive
roads when you can just have well developed waterborne trade?

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evgen
The location for most major cities around the world is where there was a
transition point between modes of transport. Sea <-> river, river <-> road,
then later adding canals and rail into the mix. Where such transit points
exist you are going to develop infrastructure for storing and re-packaging
goods from one mode of transportation to another, which will lead to trade of
the goods at these locations, which leads to more goods coming in to be
traded, and round and round it goes.

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anovikov
Maybe it's whole lot simpler and it's just things like rivers and terrain
shape human habitation and economy patterns both now and 2000 years ago?

~~~
dredmorbius
Bingo. I've been discussiing this on G+. In paarticular, adding topographic
maps helps show transport logic pointedly ignored by the paper.

The areas may simply be more amenable to prosperity: good land, water,
resources.

Roads were little used for transport. Goods moved by water. Rivers. Sea.
Canals, mostly after 1500. Costs were 1/20th or less of overland drayage.

Transport routes are established between points of interest, and those develop
according to potential. Several of the major roads follow coastlines or
rivers. Others bridge river valleys, generally through other valleys and over
passes.

The Roman empire itself grew into areas offering food, lumber, or other trade.

The paper's conclusion of causality is grossly premature and overstated.

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/Fr...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a6/France_map_Lambert-93_topographic-
ancient_Roman_roads.svg/1099px-France_map_Lambert-93_topographic-
ancient_Roman_roads.svg.png)

[http://floodmap.net/Elevation/ElevationMap/CountryMaps/?cz=F...](http://floodmap.net/Elevation/ElevationMap/CountryMaps/?cz=FR_2)

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Topograp...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Topographic_map_of_the_Seine_basin_%28English_png%29.png)

~~~
growlist
I've only had a quick skim but what worries me is that the authors are
investigating a fundamentally geographic problem yet don't apparently have a
background in GI science. For example, the authors use fixed grid cells for
analysis, yet the modifiable areal unit problem states that varying the
boundaries of your analysis can change the result, and especially given the
coarseness of their chosen grid I'd like to see at least some attempt to
handle this (perhaps repeat with smaller/shifted grid cells, compare results),
or failing that at very least evidence of awareness of the problem. I've an
MSc is GIS and one thing I learned is that even with the best data and
methodology (PhD level spatial stats) it can be extremely difficult to
establish statistical significance, and I'm not convinced here. I'd like to
see a far more sophisticated treatment of the GI science methodologically
before the leap into the historical/economic domain. I strongly suspect the
geo side would fall apart under close analysis, thus undermining everything
beyond that point.

~~~
dredmorbius
More or less my take.

Misuse of statistics.

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vgallur
For spanish speakers interested in the subject, here is an interview with
another member of the team, Pablo Selaya, about this research.

[https://www.ivoox.com/principio-incertidumbre-calzadas-
roman...](https://www.ivoox.com/principio-incertidumbre-calzadas-romanas-
desarrollo-audios-mp3_rf_26186768_1.html)

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WalterBright
I would expect that the roads were built over existing trails, as those trails
would likely be the most efficient routes between places. Not punched through
virgin wilderness.

~~~
microtherion
Romans had considerably more powerful engineering at their disposal, and
placed a high priority on straightness. Punching through obstacles was pretty
much a trademark practice for them:
[https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2786/4032626656_8e2fd14b1b_b.j...](https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2786/4032626656_8e2fd14b1b_b.jpg)

~~~
WalterBright
It's an impressive picture. But punching through an obstacle that a trail
winds around is not the same thing as punching through a virgin wilderness.

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navane
How about the roads in the ancient middle east? How about the roads in current
USA?

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barking
The image on that webpage suggests there were no Roman roads in Greece

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JoeAltmaier
Is this just a heatmap of population?

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jbg_
Non-AMP URL: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/08/06/how-
year-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/08/06/how-year-old-
roads-predict-modern-day-prosperity/)

~~~
dang
Changed from
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/business/2018/08/06/h...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/business/2018/08/06/how-
year-old-roads-predict-modern-day-prosperity/).

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ramblerouser
>How does military might factor in?

I don't think that sentence is grammatically correct.

The study does a poor job of explaining why there are so many roads in Turkey
and most of the middle east, and yet such little development there. Such a
stark contrast between western Europe and the Islamic world casts doubt on the
idea that the roads played the dominant economic factor over the past two
millennia.

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scatters
"military might" is a noun phrase (adjective + noun), "factor in" is a verb
phrase (verb + preposition). Hopefully this helps your parse.

~~~
jobigoud
Not a native speaker but shouln't it be "how might the military factor in"?

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netsharc
Here "might" is a noun meaning "strength", not the verb
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/might](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/might)

It can even be replaced 1:1 with strength, so "How does military strength
factor in?"

