Roman roads in Landes, a territory that the Romans supposedly “abandoned”? These highways, used for travel and commercial exchanges, are rare in the department. But two new routes not mentioned in the Roman archives have just been discovered.
Until now we thought it was The Romans he mostly left the territory of the Landes. separately two lanes between Bordeaux and Daxwhich is mentioned in an official document of the time, Antoninus’ itineraryarchaeologists considered this area “landes desert”. However, numerous Roman buildings have been found in the area throughout history, without understanding how they were connected under Roman rule. New discoveries made by a duo of archaeologists, including young amateur of 17 yearsclarify the picture, local media report. Two new Roman roads (the equivalent of our highways) were brought to light in the Landes!
Tracks that remained unnoticed
Two volunteers of CRAL (Center for Archaeological Research in Landes) identified the remains of Roman roads where no one has suspected until nownoticed Southwest. So, in the middle of the pines, in the nature west of Mont-de-Marsan, the ground is slightly arched. Don’t imagine cobblestones in the middle of sand. This is about Via Terrana, dirt and sand roads used by the Romans outside the big cities. Because of this, they have flown under the radar until now.
It was airborne radar technology, called LiDar, that was used to identify these ancient routes from the sky. The latter allows you to study the relief of the ground from a distance without being disturbed by vegetation. Here’s how many there are archaeological discoveries are carried out, either on the pages battle of the bulgeor in the footsteps of the ancient peoples of Amazonia. On the spot, notes the regional daily, indeed, “sediment concentration (…) prevents the growth of ferns”. But the tracks are so faint that any walker would miss them.
A discovery that calls local history into question
Fortunately, a young high school student, Romain Meynot, took a look, and by analyzing the aerial shots, he noticed, “linear topographic anomalies”or raised flat tracks, characteristics of Roman roads. And this, on hundreds of kilometers. Which is strange, because “in the old texts they are mentioned only twice” underlined for the newspaper Didier Vignaud, an archaeologist from Cral. And indeed, this amazing discovery “questions everything”. Experts now better connect certain remains with the Roman world, both in terms of communication with the outside world and in commercial exchange. And so you can learn more about the economy of Land during the Roman era. Still to the South West, there are now two new routes, routes parallel to the official north-south route, between the communes of Trensacq and Gouts, and between Lencouacq and Bougue, on each side of Mont-de-Marsan. But a transverse route, east-west, also seems to take shape, along the river Adour, an important river axis in this period.
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