The Trackways

These settlements were connected with each other by the ancient trackways. These green ways often followed natural contours in the landscape, and had evolved over time as animals were driven from place to place, and pedestrians walked to and from neighbouring settlements. Much of the land was forested; the lower valleys provided fertile land and were ideal places for fishing, agriculture and the rearing of cattle.

The trackways will have provided links in many ways: farmsteads to fields; to other farmsteads; to the neighbouring long barrow tomb; with long-distance trackways joining the separate localities to the camp meeting places and cross-country flint roads. Others were more likely to have been processional ways, like one heading for the gigantic temple at Avebury. Others, the long-distance ways mentioned above, are now known as the Icknield Way, the Ridgeway National Trail, the Harrow Way and the Pilgrims’ Way.

Some of these trackways followed the tops of higher land, while others progressed along the lower slopes. The lowland areas were thickly forested and poorly drained and for long distance travel there was an advantage in following the top of a line of hills. Skills to develop tracks across bog lands, such as in Somerset, were learnt by early people. Known as corduroy roads, they were formed when huge quantities of alder poles and brushwood were used to link the fen islands across the marshes. The Sweet track in the Glastonbury fens, Somerset is the oldest purpose built road in the world and has been dated to the 3800s BC.