Alejandro Bernal Vélez

The aim of this article is to discuss the role of roads and communication routes as essential elements in the social production of space, and in the conformation of a border Tawantinsuyu region in the northern Andes at the time of the Spanish conquest. Available archaeological and historiographical information on the department of Nariño in Colombia and the province of Carchi in Ecuador is used to evaluate the degree of conquest and dominion of the Incas in the Northern Andes, and the function of social interaction in the spatial configuration. The text highlights that, regardless of whether the region was part of the Inca Empire, some elements that are regarded as characteristic of the so-called “Andean world” are present in the archaeological record, and even that some of them are not temporarily related to the imperial presence in the area.