Kelio istorija

Abstract

The article was prepared using the material collected by foreign and Lithuanian authors. The road history from the oldest days, i.e. 3500 BC, until today is reviewed in the article. The road originated from pedestrian paths leading to the hunting and fishing places or pastures in the primitive society. The origin of the road as an erection can be derived from conscious activity of a human in widening or otherwise improving natural paths for multiple passing. The first artificial road pavement could be a twig deck in the wood or marshland. The researchers could judge about ancient road constructions only from archaeological excavations and findings. The world road history tells that the slave-owning society used roads for trade, war purposes, cult processions and approaching the building sites. The Roman Empire had a very dense network of roads. At those times road builders used 10 times more stone material for road construction than nowadays, and the labour force was very cheap.