Marco de Canavezes, entre o Douro e o Tâmega: Observação de uma rede de lugares centrais

Abstract

The desire to understand how to project and build in an apparently confusing and fragmented territory, has contributed to the search for the factors and principles of the organization of the studied territory, Marco de Canaveses. However, its complexity, the amount of information available and dispersed, and the observations made, led the work to a more careful record of the inhabit marks of the settlement previous to the 1st millenium b.C. and of the Castrejo settlement. The analysis of the settlement's trace elements allows us to observe on the territory a system of connections between places. This way, the visibility relations between the various settlements, the way they are distributed, the territory they control, the places they go through and build, mirror a logic of network and circulation that enhances the formation of local consciences based on proximity and neighbourhood relations. Themes that become pertinent to think about the contemporary territory, always having in mind that this is the product of a long process of evolution and experimentation, of the relationship between a community and the space it inhabits, modifying it according to its experiences and needs, in order to improve it.