Knowra Aztec agriculture Aztec agriculture Aztec agriculture comprised farming practices in central Mexico, including rain-fed cultivation, irrigation, and intensive raised-field cultivation on shallow lake beds.
Chinampa : A raised agricultural plot built in shallow lake water, typically bounded by canals and planted with crops. Chinampas combined fertile lake sediment, canal water, and intensive cultivation near Tenochtitlan.
Basin of Mexico : A highland basin in central Mexico containing a chain of lakes and the site of ancient Tenochtitlan. Its lakes, wetlands, rainfall, and slopes shaped the range of farming methods.
Aztec cuisine : The foods and cooking practices of central Mexican peoples under Aztec rule. Farmed maize, beans, squash, and other crops formed the basis of everyday meals.
Domestication of maize : The long process by which people in ancient Mexico transformed teosinte into cultivated maize. Aztec farming relied on a crop domesticated thousands of years before the empire.
Chinampas of Xochimilco : A surviving landscape of canals and cultivated plots in the southern part of the Valley of Mexico. Xochimilco preserves living examples of lake-based cultivation associated with the region's agricultural history.
Mesoamerican milpa : A rotational farming system that commonly grows maize, beans, and squash together. Milpa fields supplied staple crops beyond the intensively cultivated lake margins.
Maize : A domesticated cereal grain native to the Americas, also known as corn. Maize was the principal staple cultivated and consumed across Aztec society.
Aztec markets : Trading venues in Aztec cities where food, crafts, and other goods were exchanged. Surplus crops reached urban consumers through regular markets and local trade.
Mesoamerican agriculture : The diverse farming systems developed by peoples of Mesoamerica before and during European contact. Aztec practices belonged to a much older regional agricultural tradition.
Lake Texcoco : A formerly extensive lake in the Valley of Mexico, around which Tenochtitlan and other settlements developed. Its waters and wetlands offered resources while constraining and enabling cultivation.
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