The Imperial Inka road system: exploring new paths

Abstract

The royal Inka road (Qhapaq Ñan), and its associated array of 2000+ provincial facilities, was the grandest work of infrastructure ever constructed in the indigenous Americas. Spanning at least 40,000 km, the road network joined the farthest reaches of the empire to Cuzco, the imperial capital, via two main routes, one in the highlands and the other hugging the coastline. Additional roads crossed the Andes, running from the coast past the Americas’ highest peaks and down into the forests and plains of the eastern lowlands. A 12-year project on the roads by professionals from six Andean nations resulted in the naming of the Qhapaq Ñan as the largest archaeological site on the World Heritage list in 2014. The recent research has illuminated the organization of the network through examination of precursors, detailed descriptions of more than 200 sectors, logistical studies at the local and macro levels, GIS analyses, and explorations of human experience in traversing a landscape that the Inkas saw as populated by innumerable non-human beings. The present article discusses those issues, summarizing the results of the recent studies, and poses areas of inquiry for future research.