Timber trackway (constructed road)
Camino construido: pasarela de tablones sobre pantano
- Date
- 3807 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Sweet Track, Somerset Levels, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Neolithic communities of Somerset
- Field
- Movement
What it is
A 2 km trackway of oak planks over ash and hazel posts, dated by dendrochronology to the exact year (winter of 3807–3806 BCE). The oldest precisely dated constructed road, showing sophisticated carpentry and planning.
The Post Track beneath it is even older (3838 BCE). Paved stone causeways (Ur, Knossos) date from the 3rd millennium.
What it led to
- Connection of communities across wetlands: a prehistoric road network
- Planned cooperative labour using timber cut from several woodlands
- Absolute dating that calibrates the chronology of the British Neolithic
Built on
- Polished stone axec. 8000 BCE
- Pile dwellingc. 5700 BCE
- Mortise-and-tenon carpentry
Made possible
- Cobbled roadway
- Wooden bridge
- Bronze Age plank trackways