from Hacker News

How 2,000-year-old roads predict modern-day prosperity

by lazydon on 8/8/18, 12:15 PM with 49 comments

  • by dzdt on 8/8/18, 1:10 PM

    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.

  • by anovikov on 8/8/18, 1:03 PM

    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?

  • by vgallur on 8/9/18, 7:54 AM

    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...

  • by WalterBright on 8/9/18, 8:44 AM

    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.

  • by navane on 8/9/18, 8:52 AM

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

  • by barking on 8/9/18, 9:43 AM

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

  • by JoeAltmaier on 8/8/18, 1:56 PM

    Is this just a heatmap of population?

  • by jbg_ on 8/9/18, 8:55 AM

  • by ramblerouser on 8/8/18, 1:07 PM

    >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.