There is quite a bit of published material on prehistoric roads and tracks nowadays and it is generally though they originated as animal tracks followed by humans and evolving into human path ways (during the Mesolithic era before farming was introduced to Britain and Ireland). Roads and tracks themselves came about mainly as a result of agriculture – and the need to transfer stock from winter to summer pasture, or from field to field, or from farm to market etc. However, some long distance routes may have developed for trade and discourse. For example, the Great North Road, from southern Britain to the north country, seems to have followed the same basic line over many centuries. It seems it may even go back as far as the Mesolithic pre-farming era – go to www.express.co.uk/news/uk/482078/the-10-000-year-old-motorway-services
Archaeologists, excavating in the vicinity of a Roman town at Catterick, have stumbled across a Mesolithic settlement alongside the A1, dating 8000 years prior to the Romans. It is thought to have been used by travellers.