Cities, Towns and Villages in Hidalgo - Pachuca, Hidalgo (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 218. Not illustrated. Chapters: Pachuca, Hidalgo. Excerpt: Pachuca, Hidalgo - Evidence of early human habitation in this area is found in Cerro de las Navajas and Zacualtian, in the Sierra de Pachuca. Here primitive mines to extract green obsidian, arrow heads, scraping tools and mammoth remains can be traced back as far as 12,000 B.C.E. An ancient pre-Hispanic obsidian tool-making center has also been fund the in the small town of San Bartolo near the city. Around 2,000 B.C.E. nomadic groups here began to be replaced by sedentary peoples who formed farming villages in an area then known as Itzcuincuitlapilco, of which the municipality of Pachuca is a part. Later artifacts from between 200 C.E and 850 C.E. show Teotihuacan influence with platforms and figurines found in San Bartolo and in Tlapacoya. Development of this area as a city, however, would lag behind other places in the region such as Tulancingo, Tula and Atotonilco El Grande, but the archeological sites here were on the trade routes among these larger cities. After the Teotihuacan era, the area was dominated by the Chichimecas with their capital in Xaltocan, who called the area around Pachuca Njunthe. Later, the Chichimecas would found the dominion of Cuauhtitlan pushing the native Otomis to the Mezquital Valley. These conquests coalesced into a zone called Cuautlalpan, of which Pachuca was a part. Fortifications in the area of Pachuca city and other areas were built between 1174 and 1181. This dominion would eventually be overrun by the Aztec Triple Alliance between 1427 and 1430, with rule in Pachuca then coming from the city of Tenochtitlan. According to tradition, it was after this conquest that mineral exploitation began here and in neighboring Real del Monte, at a site known as Jacal or San Nicolas. The Aztec governing center was where Plaza Juarez in Pachuca ci...