Os caminhos da estrutura do território do Baixo Ave

Abstract

This thesis has as main study object the ways of Baixo Ave's territory, that is, the whole infrastructures that, from protohistory to present days, have become part of that regional area. By ways we considered all terminologies, typologies and functions under which these elements have been being unfolded in a dense and very complex process. The Baixo Ave region, which we defined here by the municipalities of Póvoa de Varzim, Vila do Conde, Vila Nova de Famalicão, Trofa and Santo Tirso, is the area that our study focus about. This territory presents very own characteristics, such as its middle position between the regional contexts of Minho and Douro or between the interiors of the valley and the flat lands over the Atlantic. Despite the identification of this individual character, we should also emphasize the peculiarities that this territory shares with all Entre-Douro-e-Minho region. Between its plains and the deep valleys, dug by its tributaries, this territory develops itself in a sequence of contained spaces by where the settlements spread. It's precisely basing on these settlements spread over the territory that we believe it's useful to make a step backwards that helped us understanding the process of continuous incorporation of the ways in the regional space's structure. Basing on the ancient nature of the Baixo Ave's settlements, this methodological action was judiciously organized under several key-moments of the territorial infrastructuration where these ways have an essential role: from the proto-history ways to the viae publicae, vicinales and privatae of the Romanization; from the medieval ways to the transversal ways of the Modern Age; from the royal and district roads to the municipal roads or highways. In a territory since long time highly populated, the study of the ways and their contribution to the landscape structure seams a departure point for us to look thoughtfully towards the evolution of the Portuguese territory's construction.