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Once established in Tenochtitlan, the Mexica built grand temples for different purposes. The Templo Mayor (Main Temple) and nearby buildings are rich in the symbolism of Aztec cosmology that linked rain and fertility, warfare, sacrifice, and imperialism with the sacred mission to preserve the sun and the cosmic order. [17]
The Aztecs [a] (/ ˈ æ z t ɛ k s / AZ-teks) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries.
Cities of the Aztecs, Mayas, and Incas were as large and organized as the largest in the Old World, with an estimated population of 200,000 to 350,000 in Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec Empire. The market established in the city was said to have been the largest ever seen by the conquistadors when they arrived.
Reconstruction of one of the pyramids of Aspero. After the first humans — who were then arranged into hunter-gatherer tribal groups — arrived in South America via the Isthmus of Panama, they spread out across the continent, with the earliest evidence for settlement in the Andean region dating to circa 15,000 BCE, in what archaeologists call the Lithic Period.
The Inca referred to their empire as Tawantinsuyu, [14] "the suyu of four [parts]". In Quechua, tawa is four and -ntin is a suffix naming a group, so that a tawantin is a quartet, a group of four things taken together, in this case the four suyu ("regions" or "provinces") whose corners met at the capital.
Maya stele in Copán.. The Mesoamerican Classic Period can be established from around 200 to 900 A. D. However, the chronology varies in each cultural area. The precursors to this period are found in the late Preclassic Period, at around 400 B. C, when an increase in efficiency of agriculture technology led to demographic growth, a greater division of labor and specialization, and the growth ...
During the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, indigenous assistants were referred to by the indigenous word of yanakuna. Indian auxiliaries continued to be used by the Spanish to maintain control over their colonies in the Americas; frequently stationed on the frontier , they were often used to suppress anti-colonial revolts such as Arauco War .
The word Aztec in modern usage would not have been used by the people themselves. It has variously been used to refer to the Aztecs or Triple Alliance, the Nahuatl-speaking people of central Mexico prior to the Spanish conquest, or specifically the Mexica ethnicity of the Nahuatl-speaking tribes (from tlaca). [7]