Hot take: Stop calling every old stone wall a 'Roman road' just because it's straight

I was out in Vermont last summer hiking near a old logging trail. Guy on the forum said it was clearly a Roman road because the stones were lined up. No. It's a 19th century drainage ditch with field stones stacked by a farmer. I've seen this happen three times now in New England groups. We lose track of actual history when we slap labels on anything that looks old. How do we fix this without being the jerk who rains on every post?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_riley11d ago

lol my buddy Dave had this exact thing happen. He's a history buff and went to check out this "Roman road" someone posted near his place in Maine. Turns out it was just an old cart path from the 1800s that some farmer built to get his hay wagon down to the river. The stones were literally just field rocks he cleared from his property and stacked. Dave tried to politely explain it and the guy got all defensive, said he "knew what he was looking at." Now every time someone posts a blurry picture of a flat rock, Dave just scrolls past and mutters about it under his breath. It's frustrating because the real history of these old farm roads and logging trails is actually pretty interesting if people bothered to learn about it instead of just calling everything Roman.

gracej9911d ago

Your buddy Dave sounds like he's carrying this around like it's a full-time job or something lmao. Yeah it's annoying when people don't listen but the guy who was defensive about his Roman road is probably just a normal dude who got excited about something. Not everyone's gonna be a chill history expert like Dave, you know? Half the fun of those posts is the comments section where people argue about rocks. Let Dave have his peaceful scroll and mutter away, it's really not that deep.

taylor.brooke11d ago

Hear me out though what if the REAL Roman road is just the friends we made along the way? Okay but seriously everyone's so focused on whether it's Roman or not they're missing the point that these old farm paths tell a WAY cooler story about regular people surviving and building stuff.