Preface -- Introduction -- Ecological and political landscapes -- Land -- Canoes and commerce -- Demography and society -- Crisis in the seventeenth century -- Late colonial watersheds -- Nahuatl sources from Xochimilco -- Conclusion.
Summary:
"Over the course of several millennia, the mutual influences between Native societies and their natural surroundings profoundly affected the history of communities in and around Lakes Xochimilco and Chalco. Early agricultural societies intervened in the lacustrine environment through irrigation projects which in turn encouraged population growth and enabled the rise of complex societies. During these changing, interconnected ecological and sociopolitical processes, the Xochimilca, Cuitlahuaca, and Mixquica and other ethnic groups settled in the southern lake areas. There they adopted chinampa cultivation and contributed to dramatic demographic growth and urbanization in the late Postclassic period (ca. 1350-1521 C.E.), which culminated in the rise of Tenochtitlan and, with it, the Aztec Triple Alliance"-- Provided by publisher.
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