Feature: Hidden for 2,000 years, Roman roads found with space age laser mapping technology

Hundreds of kilometers of roads built in Britain by Roman invaders have been rediscovered after being lost for 2,000 years.

Archaeologists and researchers have made the remarkable discoveries using space age laser mapping technology designed to track changing coastlines and identify flood areas.

Rediscovering the old routes are giving new clues to a neglected chapter in the history of Roman Britain, the network of roads built to help Rome's legions conquer and control northern England, said the government's environment agency.

Records show the massive road building program started after a rift between a Northern England queen and her husband, a leading Roman.

A showdown between Rome and Britain raged after Queen Cartimandua, of the Celtic Brigantes tribe, allies of the Romans, divorced from her Roman husband Venetius.

Roman Emperor Vespasian sent a force to put down a rebellion in northern England, building roads across the rugged landscape as a vital part of a decade-long conquest.

Roman roads were large structures, typically measuring five to seven metres wide and reaching a height of around 0.5 metres in the center. However, nearly 2,000 years of weathering means that they are now very difficult to spot at ground level.

Historian and researcher David Ratledge has been charting Lancashire's Roman roads for more than 45 years and has recently used the environment agency's laser detection and ranging data, known as Lidor, to discover a "lost" Roman road from Ribchester to Lancaster.

Ratledge said: "These were the county's most important Roman sites so good communications between them must have been essential."

Experts Hugh Toller and Bryn Gethin have found at least four "lost" Roman roads around the country using Lidar with many more potential discoveries awaiting confirmation from fieldwork.

In Cumbria, Toller has used Lidar data to find a road from a Roman fort in Northern England to the site of a Roman cavalry camp, described as a missing part of a well-known route called the Maiden Way that ended near to Hadrian's Wall, built along the Scottish border.

Researchers and archaeologists previously had to rely on aerial photographs in their quest to discover more about Roman Britain, but the Environment Agency has made it's laser data publicly available. Endit