[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Renfield. As much as I'd love to believe this, I don't -- the Roman road system was being built in Italy even before Rome's independence, by the Etruscans, from whom the Romans picked up a lot of their characteristic civil engineering, iow as far back as the 7th c BC.

By the late 3rd and early 2nd c BC, the Roman military road system stretched through the Balkans and into Greece and Anatolia.

It was carried on throughout the empire before the beginning of the conquest of Britain in the 1st c AD, including in large areas which never had a Celtic population.

Let's not forget that the Greeks built roads, including in areas they'd colonized in what is now the French Riviera, iow, Gaul.

Without any kind of scientific dating having been done on the road substrata, the entire book will have to be (for the time being at least) be written off as baseless speculation.

One bit of circumstantial evidence in favor would be the Celts' development of the seamless metal tyre for their chariot and wagon wheels, but obviously that would be advantageous over lousy unimproved two-tracks that apparently prevailed.

[editor-surveyor]

But mindless contrarians buy books in large numbers, so he’ll make a wad on it anyway.

[Renfield]

I recall posting on FR, a few years back, an article about British-Celtic roads made from logs and planks. The article claimed that the road network was extensive and well-engineered, and that the Romans simply covered over the existing British wood roads with stone pavement.

[ckilmer]

the Roman road system was being built in Italy even before Rome’s independence, by the Etruscans
............
the celts predated the romans in greece northern italy and spain.

http://fsos.com/celtic_history.htm
The Golden Age of the Celts
The Celts were at their height during the 4th and 5th centuries BC. During this time they waged three great wars, which had great influence on the history of southern Europe.

About 500 BC the Celts conquered Spain, wresting it from Carthage.

Around 400 BC they took Northern Italy from the Etruscans. Here they settled in great numbers.

At the end of the 4th century the overran Pannonia, conquering the Illyrians.

All these wars were fought in alliance with the Greeks. At this time the Celts and Greeks were on very friendly terms. The defeat of Carthage broke the monopoly on British tin and Spanish silver and freed the overland trade routes to Britain. At this time the Greeks and Celts were allied against the Phoenicians and Persians. Celtic hostility to Carthage helped save Greece from destruction from the East, no Celts enlisted in Carthage’s mercenary army. Alexander the Great made alliance with the Celts in 334 BC, when he was about to embark on his conquest of Asia. The Celts kept the Greek dominions safe from attack during his absence.

The Celts and Rome
Around the year 400 BC the Celts were ruled by a king named Livy Ambicatus. At this time, the height of their power, they were unified as a military confederacy of tribes. They were attracted by the rich land of Northern Italy and invaded, battling and defeating the Etruscans. At this time the Romans were pushing at the Etruscans from the South, and the Celts and Romans acted in alliance. But the Romans despised the Northern barbarians, and at the seige of Clusium (391 BC) (which the Romans regarded as a bulwark of Rome against the barbaric North) the Romans betrayed the Celts. The Celts recognized former Roman envoys fighting with the enemy. The Celts applied to Rome for the family of Fabius Ambustus (whose sons were the envoys), the chief pontiff of Rome, in reparation. Rome refused and elected the Fabii as miltary tribunes the next year. Abandoning the seige of Clusium, the Celts marched on Rome. They passed cities and fortresses without stopping, there was no plundering. Their cry to guards on provinicial town walls was “We are bound for Rome”. They reached Rome and defeated the mustered city forces in a single charge. Three days later they were in Rome, and stayed for a year. They extracted a great fine from Rome in reparation for the treachery at Clusium and left with a peace treaty. For nearly a century there was peace between Rome and the Celts. It was broken only when various Celtic tribes allied with the Etruscans in the third Samnite war, this was near the time of the breakup of the old Celtic Empire.