On the ChronoGeological Movements of Armies and Fortifications

New research about the ancient fortress at Tel Qudadi near Tel Aviv suggests that the fortress — once believed to have been built by King Solomon — was probably an Assyrian outpost supported by a local population. The fortress may have been used for about 100 years or so.

Abandoned ancient fortifications have been discovered around the world. From ancient Hittite forts to lost Egyptian forts, archaeologists have uncovered a cornucopia of ancient fortified habitats that have long since been abandoned.

Has anyone studied the movement of political boundaries as evidenced by fortifications? What is the average usage lifespan of a military installation? Even in modern history, it is rare to find a fort or fortress that has been used for military purposes for more than a few centuries. In western Europe, Collins Barracks in Dublin, Ireland may have been the longest used military fort in recent history (built in 1704, the barracks were used up until a few years ago).

In the United States, the oldest continually used military installation is West Point. Originally built to control traffic on the Hudson river, West Point lost its strategic value after the United States won its independence from Great Britain. The garrison at West Point was eventually incorporated into the Army of the United States several years after the War of Independence.

Collins Barracks now serves as a museum. Many other fortresses are now being used as museums, too; that includes European castles, Spanish forts in Florida (especially the old fort at St. Augustine, the oldest European military installation in North America), and more. But not all former military installations are mothballed as museums.

For example, The Presidio of San Francisco — one of the few military installations in North America that has been under the control of three different governments (Spain, Mexico, and the United States) — was closed as a military installation in 1994 but is now both a national park and a residential community (housing can be leased from the park). The former military base is also home to many businesses that support The Presidio Trust, which manages the park.

The Presidio is a modern example of how a large military installation can become a civilian community. The strategic military needs of the civilization that controlled the Presidio changed radically. There is no longer a threat of war that can be met by this particular installation.

Recent biological research suggests that invasive species play a role in mass extinctions. In GeoPolitical situations, invasions are certainly key to the destruction of both fortifications and cities. But the changes wrought by war are more than just political. They are also economical.

Wars in the ancient world often resulted in whole populations being slaughtered, reduced to slavery, or driven out of their homelands. The loss of independent geopolitical initiative or of the economic base altered a region’s strategic value to the dominant civilization or culture. The edge of conflict shifted away to another region, necessitating the construction of new fortifications and the founding of new towns and cities to support those fortifications.

Some cities have been continually inhabited for thousands of years because their natural resources are too valuable to abandon: cities on major rivers, cities with great natural harbors, cities with access to mineral wealth, fruitful farms, etc. Cities don’t survive because of the roads that lead to them. Roads come and go. Ancient roads have even been discovered in cities that are still inhabited, such as Jerusalem. Other examples include ancient roads discovered in Hunan, China and Luxor, Egypt.

Ancient roads have been found in the western United States, Ireland, the Amazon, and other places where most people don’t expect to find traces of civilization or advanced culture. And ancient roads are probably waiting to be discovered leading to cities like Angkor Wat and Cahokia (in Illinois). The roads fell in disuse because they no longer connected two or more communities that shared a need to exchange knowledge and/or goods with each other. They no longer needed to share in defensive actions.

Roads, like fortifications, serve specific purposes that change when populations change, when ruling powers change, when high-value resources dwindle or are otherwise lost. By looking at roads and ancient forts we can identify probable centers of power, the frontiers they maintained, the resources they managed, and the needs they confronted.

Writing for the National Geographic about Cahokia, Glenn Hodges says: “Pottery’s fine and everything, but how much would a foreign culture really learn about us by looking at our dishes?”

The truth is that even if we lose some catastrophic war and are driven into slavery in a foreign land, we will leave behind more than just the shards of our dishes: we will leave behind our roads, our fortifications, and the foundations of our cities. The cities and their outlying communities will mark the places where we harvested resources, developed industry, and dwelt together. The roads and the cities will divulge secrets about our technologies and our purposes. The remnants of our architecture will disclose that we raised and maintained armies, that we moved vast quantities of people and goods across great distances, and that we shared knowledge about how to do these things over the entire continent.

We document the conflict between Roman armies and northern European barbarians by excavating the Limes Romanus; we know that Roman culture was in many ways uniform and widespread because its armies carried the same architectural styles, defensive fortifications, and road-building skills across thousands of miles of frontier. One cannot fail to appreciate the magnitude of the Roman accomplishments because they left their mark everywhere.

As archaeologists dig deeper, uncover yet more ancient secrets, and study communities once thought NOT to have existed, we learn about cultures that predated writing — cultures that moved peoples and goods across great distances, that shared knowledge of architecture and industry across continents, and cultures that fought (and lost) long-forgotten wars.

In another 20 years, a much more vivid picture will have emerged of the warlike and industrial tribes that inhabited the ancient world because we will find more of their roads, unveil more of their fortifications, and track the moving frontiers that followed the changes in populations and political structures.

We may even have to define a whole new category of politics just to explain how such far-flung changes could have occurred systematically before people could write and before the great empires of history arose.