Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RoadNet_Andes (Road networks and territorial dynamics: a geospatial approach to Andean cultural heritage in motion between the Altiplano and the Pacific coast)
Reporting period: 2018-04-16 to 2020-04-15
As the footprint of the movements and interactions that shape territories, road networks constitute a key archaeological feature for the study of territorial dynamics. Because of their relationship with the organization of societies through space, and with the processes of foundation, change, and resilience of socio-spatial formations through time, they have been a classic interest of regional approach in archaeological research. However, road networks are also a problematic object of study, due to the frequent entanglement of roads of different epochs and scales, and especially because of the challenging assessment of their chronology.
RoadNet_Andes MSCA research proposal was built on the opportunity offered by the recent developments of geomatics and network analysis for an innovative research approach, based on massive spatial data and multiscale analysis, to assess the chronology of empirical road networks, as well as for the formulation of new research questions about the long term territorial dynamics related to them.
The research was based on an Andean case study where remains of ancient pathways and associated settlements are often exceptionally conserved in deserts and mountainous regions. The case study focuses on the macro-regional dynamics that occurred within 18°S transect (Arica-Carangas), extending between the Pacific and the Altiplano, during the Late Prehispanic and Early Colonial periods when the Andean region has experimented one of the most large-scale resettlement events in world history.
The meaning of these ancient road networks today has formed a complementary research question of RoadNet_Andes. That topic was tackled by means of an action-research aimed at assessing with borderland local communities (of the same region) how the current politics of the Andean road system heritagization could foster collective reflexivity about indigenous territorialities and long-term cultural dynamics in the context of a conflictual international borderland.
RoadNet_Andes MSCA research proposal was built on the opportunity offered by the recent developments of geomatics and network analysis for an innovative research approach, based on massive spatial data and multiscale analysis, to assess the chronology of empirical road networks, as well as for the formulation of new research questions about the long term territorial dynamics related to them.
The research was based on an Andean case study where remains of ancient pathways and associated settlements are often exceptionally conserved in deserts and mountainous regions. The case study focuses on the macro-regional dynamics that occurred within 18°S transect (Arica-Carangas), extending between the Pacific and the Altiplano, during the Late Prehispanic and Early Colonial periods when the Andean region has experimented one of the most large-scale resettlement events in world history.
The meaning of these ancient road networks today has formed a complementary research question of RoadNet_Andes. That topic was tackled by means of an action-research aimed at assessing with borderland local communities (of the same region) how the current politics of the Andean road system heritagization could foster collective reflexivity about indigenous territorialities and long-term cultural dynamics in the context of a conflictual international borderland.
RoadNet_Andes research was undertaken according to two fundamental objectives:
- developing a new methodological approach to assess the morphogenesis of road networks palimpsests
- researching the contemporary meanings of trans-border ancient roads in a conflictual international borderland
The first task consisted in conceptually defining a road networks palimpsest as the product of the accumulation, through time, of road systems of distinct chronological periods, generated by both top-down territorial planning and bottom-up repeated spatial behaviours of agents. The second task consisted in registering and assembling road networks data from distinct sources (aerial imagery, historic cartography, written and oral narratives, as well as field archaeological survey), considering not only movement infrastructures but also their environment and connected settlements. The third task implied performing and contrasting distinct spatial network analyses to model road sections’ most likely antiquity according to their connectivity to settlements of known chronology. According to the assessment of modelling results based on archaeological field data, the calculation of a chronological probability inversely correlated to the topological distance to (nodal) dated settlements, as well as the accumulated least-cost path (LCP) alongside the roads palimpsest between contemporary settlements, resulted the two most pertinent for chronological assessment. Additionally, the comparison of these LCP along the palimpsest with LCP based on pedestrian movement cost functions related to terrain slope has allowed inferring and discussing the locational characteristics’ rationales of the most-likely networks of specific historical conjunctures. This topological approach was implemented with two roads palimpsests datasets. A first case study has researched the morphological evolution of road networks since the Late Prehispanic period to the present time in a 1.000km2 mountainous basin. A second one was carried out at a macro-regional scale (20.000km2) to assess a hypothesis of Inca imperial hegemony by means of spatial controlling movements and interactions flows.
RoadNet_Andes critical heritage study on the meanings of ancient road networks was also carried out by means of two case studies. The first one has consisted in the analysis of a recent experience of co-construction of a hiking circuit in an indigenous territory of northern Chile that succeeded in its heritage-based design but not in its touristic implementation. An in-depth analysis of the socioterritorial context and on participatory action research carried out to design the circuit evidenced complex intersections between current policies on heritage, multiculturalism, and environment, relating to the 2014 inscription of the Qhapaq ñan Andean road system on the World Heritage List. A second and still ongoing case study is focusing on the meanings of ancient roads and associated memories of pre-motorized mobility through the Altiplano region, in the context of the Chilean-Bolivian borderland current conflictual dynamics.
Overall, RoadNet_Andes research in both spatial networks analysis (of ancient road palimpsests) and critical heritage study (of the current significations of these ancient roads in indigenous territories) has produced significant results disseminated through several articles published in scientific journals in the fields of archaeology, anthropology, and development. These results based on the project’s Andean case studies have also been communicated in several scientific events in both European and Andean countries, and are now examined by a broader research network in order to assess the potential cross-regional and -cultural exploitation of the methodology designed by RoadNet_Andes action.
- developing a new methodological approach to assess the morphogenesis of road networks palimpsests
- researching the contemporary meanings of trans-border ancient roads in a conflictual international borderland
The first task consisted in conceptually defining a road networks palimpsest as the product of the accumulation, through time, of road systems of distinct chronological periods, generated by both top-down territorial planning and bottom-up repeated spatial behaviours of agents. The second task consisted in registering and assembling road networks data from distinct sources (aerial imagery, historic cartography, written and oral narratives, as well as field archaeological survey), considering not only movement infrastructures but also their environment and connected settlements. The third task implied performing and contrasting distinct spatial network analyses to model road sections’ most likely antiquity according to their connectivity to settlements of known chronology. According to the assessment of modelling results based on archaeological field data, the calculation of a chronological probability inversely correlated to the topological distance to (nodal) dated settlements, as well as the accumulated least-cost path (LCP) alongside the roads palimpsest between contemporary settlements, resulted the two most pertinent for chronological assessment. Additionally, the comparison of these LCP along the palimpsest with LCP based on pedestrian movement cost functions related to terrain slope has allowed inferring and discussing the locational characteristics’ rationales of the most-likely networks of specific historical conjunctures. This topological approach was implemented with two roads palimpsests datasets. A first case study has researched the morphological evolution of road networks since the Late Prehispanic period to the present time in a 1.000km2 mountainous basin. A second one was carried out at a macro-regional scale (20.000km2) to assess a hypothesis of Inca imperial hegemony by means of spatial controlling movements and interactions flows.
RoadNet_Andes critical heritage study on the meanings of ancient road networks was also carried out by means of two case studies. The first one has consisted in the analysis of a recent experience of co-construction of a hiking circuit in an indigenous territory of northern Chile that succeeded in its heritage-based design but not in its touristic implementation. An in-depth analysis of the socioterritorial context and on participatory action research carried out to design the circuit evidenced complex intersections between current policies on heritage, multiculturalism, and environment, relating to the 2014 inscription of the Qhapaq ñan Andean road system on the World Heritage List. A second and still ongoing case study is focusing on the meanings of ancient roads and associated memories of pre-motorized mobility through the Altiplano region, in the context of the Chilean-Bolivian borderland current conflictual dynamics.
Overall, RoadNet_Andes research in both spatial networks analysis (of ancient road palimpsests) and critical heritage study (of the current significations of these ancient roads in indigenous territories) has produced significant results disseminated through several articles published in scientific journals in the fields of archaeology, anthropology, and development. These results based on the project’s Andean case studies have also been communicated in several scientific events in both European and Andean countries, and are now examined by a broader research network in order to assess the potential cross-regional and -cultural exploitation of the methodology designed by RoadNet_Andes action.
RoadNet_Andes has achieved most of its objectives. Firstly, it developed an innovative topological approach to assess the chronology of road networks palimpsest based on empirical data, that could well apply in many deserts and mountainous regions that conserved exceptional traces of ancient movement infrastructures. Secondly, it fostered collective and multivocal reflexivity on the potentials and limits of ancient roads heritagization from both top-down (institutions) and bottom-up (agents) perspectives, which results could guide the ongoing heritage-based development projects carried out in the context of the UNESCO inscription of the Andean road system.