El Camino de Arriba y el Camino de Abajo: Life on the Road in the South-Central Andes

The Inca imperial road system (qhapaq ñan) is justifiably known as one of the great road networks of the pre-industrial world. But what do we know about its emergence within older Andean traditions of vertical mobility and caravanning? And what were this network’s post-conquest legacies for colonial economy and society in the region? This talk tackles these questions through a case study in the south-central Andes (far southern Peru/far northern Chile), drawing on results from several ongoing archaeological survey projects that focus on road infrastructures and landscapes of mobility between the late prehispanic period and the early 20th century. Through this discussion, I reflect on some of the possibilities and challenges of the recent ‘transconquest’ turn in Andean archaeology and its potential future dialogs beyond the discipline.