As the footprint of the movements and interactions that shape territories, road networks constitute a key archaeological feature for studying long term territorial dynamics. However, most archaeological research has focused on individual routes at specific periods, and little has been done so far to research road networks' long-term evolution at a regional scale. While the widespread availability of high-resolution aerial imagery facilitates recording ancient road networks in details, their chronological diagnostic remains challenging since road architecture is generally not a reliable proxy and direct stratigraphic dating is limited to very few contexts. This paper outlines a modelling approach to assess the chronology of roads based on their topological relationship with dated settlements, an idea formulated long ago but never technically implemented so far. It presents a case study on a regional road network's evolution during the last millennium, in the arid highlands of northern Chile, which conserve abundant traces and infrastructure of the settlement patterns and movement systems of its ancient territories. The case study shows the potential of this predictive modeling approach to preliminarily assess the chronology of individual road segments, as well as to visualize and characterise the evolution of the whole network through the historical periods. The basic models implemented in this paper to derive probabilities could be further refined for more specific contexts and hypotheses, and applied to many deserts and mountain regions worldwide, where ancient roads and pathways frequently accumulate as part of long-term territorial dynamics.

中文翻译：

---

对古代道路网络历时性的拓扑学见解：安第斯高地的探索性预测建模


作为塑造领土的运动和互动的足迹，道路网络构成了研究长期领土动态的关键考古特征。然而，大多数考古研究都集中在特定时期的个别路线上，到目前为止，在区域尺度上研究道路网络的长期演变方面做得很少。虽然高分辨率航空图像的广泛使用有助于详细记录古代道路网络，但它们的时间诊断仍然具有挑战性，因为道路结构通常不是一个可靠的代理，而且直接的地层测年仅限于极少数环境。本文概述了一种建模方法，根据道路与过时定居点的拓扑关系来评估道路的年代学，这是很久以前提出的想法，但迄今为止从未在技术上实施。它介绍了智利北部干旱高地上一千年区域道路网络演变的案例研究，这些高地保留了其古老领土的定居模式和运动系统的丰富痕迹和基础设施。案例研究显示了这种预测建模方法的潜力，它可以初步评估各个路段的年表，以及可视化和描述整个网络在历史时期的演变。本文中实现的用于推导概率的基本模型可以针对更具体的背景和假设进一步改进，并应用于全球许多沙漠和山区，这些地区的古老道路和小径经常作为长期领土动态的一部分积累起来。