Infrastructure & Routes

Roadbuilding and trenching for pipelines etc. are the main linear developments.

Roads take two main forms. There are small tracks, or places where people drive, the use of which over time will erode sites. These are sometimes covered in gravel. Over time, older tracks are likely to be upgraded due to the requirements of a growing population and/or infrastructure and are consolidated with tarmac, which causes more damage. Many of the effects of the construction of major roads are similar to those of development: the topsoil is stripped; upstanding features are flattened; heavy machinery can cause pressure and compaction of the soil and any archaeological remains; and chemically aggressive materials may be introduced. At its worst, entire sections of land are cut away to provide a level road surface.

Here we look at evidence recorded on the APAAME project at three sites in Jordan (Figure 1-4).

Figure 1: Aerial photograph (APAAME_20050604_GK-0059 Tell es-Sadoum (Marad, 2005) showing an excavation at the site of Tell es-Sadoum (Marad) in Iraq in which a tarmac road can be seen in the background cutting through the lower extents of the Tell.

Figure 2: This 2013 aerial photograph shows a road over a section of an exposed excavation of the remains of a church in Ma’in, Jordan (APAAME_20130414_MND-0484 Ma’in).

Figure 3: The main road south from Amman in Jordan cutting through Tall Umeiri (East) shown on a DigitalGlobe images from Google Earth. In early 2010, the road was widened back to the edge of a structure that had been excavated in 2009.

Trenching refers to the excavation of trenches for the construction of, or for an existing, canal, major irrigation channel, pipeline, aqueduct or sewage line. These trenches are deep and cut through any archaeological remains, often seriously disturbing or even destroying them. However, in some cases, trenching can be beneficial. In areas where there have been considerable changes in the ground level, it can help archaeologists find long-buried sites that would otherwise have remained unknown. In some projects, significantly longer trenches are excavated. In the North Jazira, in Iraq, trenches across an area several hundred km² were excavated in the 1980s as part of the construction of new irrigation canals and pipelines, and their associated infrastructure (see Channel Irrigation). An example from the UK is shown in Figure 1.

 

Figure 4: an example of a pipeline trench in UK. Photograph copyright: Wikimedia Commons/Stuart Stephens Project Manager, 2010.