AEGERTEN, SWITZERLAND—Swiss archaeologists gained new insight into Roman engineering and provincial infrastructure when the remains of a 2,000-year-old bridge reemerged from a former riverbed during modern construction near Aegerten in the Canton of Bern, The Miami Herald reports. Workers uncovered more than 300 oak posts belonging to a wooden structure that once spanned the Thielle River, an important waterway during the Roman era. Dendrochronological analysis indicated that the bridge was first constructed around 40 b.c., shortly after the Roman conquest of the local Celtic Helvetti tribe. It was intermittently repaired and strengthened over a period of 400 years. The bridge once stood outside the gates of the small Roman town of Petinesca, modern-day Studen, and formed a vital part of the Jura Transversal, a major Rome trade, communication, and transportation route that linked strategically important Roman military camps and settlements. Archaeologists also retrieved a number of objects that had accidentally fallen off the bridge into the river or had been intentionally tossed in. These included horseshoes, axes, coins, keys, a fishing trident, and a remarkably well-preserved carpenter’s plane made of wood and iron. To read about what scientists have learned from Swiss ice cores, go to "History in Ice."
