Скачать или смотреть Wheel Ruts on Ancient Dirt Roads?

One of my favourite YouTubers, Lindybeige, has objected on at least two occasions to films and TV shows that feature purportedly ancient dirt roads that feature two distinct wheel ruts with grass growing in the middle. He claims that these are anachronistic, pointing out that the majority of road traffic in those days should be horse-drawn carts, which would see the horse trample most of the grass in the centre, leaving no noticeable wheel ruts.

I disagreed, believing that horse-drawn carts should still leave wheel ruts. While some trampling in the middle should be expected, the idea that the road should feature no wheel ruts at all seemed wrong to me.

To find out I wrote a Monte-Carlo simulation of what happens when people, horses, sheep, and horse-drawn carts go down a grassy path.

According to my simulation, it takes relatively few carts (as little as 5% of total traffic along the road) to produce distinct wheel ruts on a grassy path.

Source code for the simulation software is available here: https://gitlab.com/chrisib/grass-simu...

Lindybeige's videos that this response relates to:
1-    • What is wrong with this picture?   (Featuring Gladiator)
2-    • The history-pedants' guide to The Last Kin...   (Featuring The Last Kindgom)