Perspectives for Network Analysis: Roman Roads, Barbarian Paths and Settlement Patterns in the Borderlands at the Limes Germanicus in the Main River Region

Abstract

AbstractIn contrast to the neighboring Roman Empire, no centralized sites in the sense of transregionally significant settlements are definitively verifiable outside of the Limes Germanicus in the research area at the middle Main River. However, some fortified hill forts do exist. Starting in late antiquity, these sites were temporarily occupied in times of internal and external conflict. Hill forts in the Babaricum were, without exception, sited on spurs at the Main or its tributaries. The course of the Main River constituted the primary transport route for the Romans into the Babaricum, although clear evidence of ship or harbor facilities has yet to be discovered for this period. The well-known hierarchical settlement and road system in the Roman Empire is not apparent in the Babaricum although numerous sunken roads in multiple path networks were discernible. Precise dating of these features to the Roman Iron Age or Migration Period has not been possible due to heavy soil erosion in the vicinity. Particular stretches of this network of paths were only seasonally in use depending on weather conditions and soil moisture, and so it is not realistic to discuss roadways as usable year-round in the Babaricum as they are in the Roman Empire. Some of these paths were fortified, although the dating of these fortifications is not possible due to the continued use of some of these pathways into the Early Modern Period. Nearest neighbor settlement relationships are methodically analyzed in network connection diagrams with the use of Delaunay triangulation in this GIS-based study. Probable routes by land and river are calculated with lost cost path analysis on the basis of digital surface models and compared with the local archaeological record.