Editing Inca road system (section)

===Colonial era===
During the first years of the Colony, the Qhapaq Ñan suffered a stage of abandonment and destruction caused by the abrupt decrease of the number of natives due to illness and war<ref>Gareis, Iris 1997). La enfermedad de los dioses: las epidemias del siglo XVI en el virreinato de Perú – Société Suisse des Américanistes - Bullettin 61</ref><ref>Stern, Steve (1986). Los pueblos indígenas del Perú y el desafío de la conquista española. Huamanga hasta 1640 - Alianza editorial - Madrid</ref> which reduced the population from more than 12 million people to about 1.1 million in 50 years<ref name ="colapso"/> and destroyed the social structure that provided labor for road maintenance. The use of the Inca roads became partial and was adapted to the new political and economic targets of the Colony and later of the Viceroyalty where the economic structure was based on the extraction of minerals and commercial production. This implied a dramatic change in the use of the territory. The former integration of longitudinal and transversal territories was reduced to a connection of the Andean valleys and the Altiplano with the coast to allow for the export of products, especially gold and silver, which started flowing to the coast and from there to Spain.<ref name="martinez"/>
A key factor in the dismantling of the network at the subcontinental level was the opening of new routes to connect the emerging production centers (estates and mines) with the coastal ports. In this context, only those routes that covered the new needs were used, abandoning the rest, particularly those that connected to the forts built during the advance of the Inca Empire or those that linked the agricultural spaces with the administrative centres. Nevertheless, the ritual roads that allowed access to the sanctuaries continued to be used under the religious syncretism that has been characterizing the Andean historical moments since the conquest.<ref name="martinez"/>

Cieza de Leon in 1553 noted the abandonment of the road and stated that ''although in many places it is already broken down and undone, it shows the great thing that it was''.<ref>«aunque por muchos lugares está ya desbaratado y deshecho, da muestra de la grande cosa que fue». Pedro Cieza de León, "Crónica del Perú. Primera parte" Pontificia  Universidad Católica del Perú – Academia Nacional de la Historia 1995 [1553]</ref> 
The admiration of the chroniclers was not enough to convince the Spanish ruler of the need to maintain and consolidate the road system rather than abandoning and destroying it. The reduction of the local population to newly built settlements (known as ''[[Indian reductions in the Andes|reducciones]]'', a sort of concentration camps) was among the causes of the abandonment of the Inca roads and the building of new ones to connect the ''reducciones'' to the centers of Spanish power.<ref name= "bar"/> Another important factor was the inadequacy of the road for horses and mules introduced by the conquerors, that became the new pack animals, substituting for the lightweight llamas.

Even the new agriculture, derived from Spain, consisting mainly of cereals, changed the appearance of the territory, which was sometimes transformed, cutting and joining several [[andén|andenes]] (farming terraces), which in turn reduced the fertile soil due to erosion form rain. The pre-Hispanic agricultural technologies were abandoned or displaced towards marginal spaces, relegated by the colonizers.<ref name="martinez"/>

Part of the network continued to be used, as well as some of its equipment, such as the tambos, which were transformed into stores and shops, adjusting to the tradition of Spain, where peasant production was taken to them for selling. The tambos entered a new stage as meeting spaces for different ways of life that irremediably ended up integrating new social and territorial structures.<ref>Glave, L. M (1989). Caminos indígenas en la sociedad colonial. Siglos XVI-XVII – Instituto de Apoyo Agrario, Lima</ref>