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Lake Texcoco ((スペイン語:Lago de Texcoco)) was a natural lake within the Valley of Mexico. The Aztecs built the city of Tenochtitlan on an island in the lake. The Spaniards built Mexico City over Tenochtitlan. Efforts to control flooding led to most of the lake being drained, leaving a much smaller Lake Texcoco east of the city, surrounded by salt marsh. The Valley of Mexico is a basin with an average elevation of above mean sea level located in the southern highlands of Mexico's central ''altiplano''. Lake Texcoco formerly extended over a large portion of the southern half of the basin, where it was the largest of an interconnected chain of five major and several smaller lakes (the other main lakes being Xaltocan, Zumpango, Chalco and Xochimilco lakes). During periods of high water levels—typically after the May-to-October rainy seasons—the lakes were often joined as one body of water, at an average elevation of above mean sea level. In the drier winter months the lake system tended to separate into individual bodies of water, a flow that was mitigated by the construction of dikes and causeways in the Late Postclassic period of Mesoamerican chronology. Lake Texcoco was the lowest-lying of all the lakes, and occupied the minimum elevation in the valley so that water ultimately drained towards it. The Valley of Mexico has been a closed basin since at least the Late Pliocene, and the lakes subsequently had no natural surface outflow, with the drainage basin forming an endorheic system. The lake basin is now occupied by Mexico City, the capital of the present-day nation of Mexico. ==History== In the Pleistocene era, the lake occupied an even greater area. There were several paleo-lakes that would connect with each other from time to time. At the north in the modern community of San Miguel Tocuilla there is a great paleontological field, with a lot of pleistocenic fauna. The disarticulated remains of seven mammoths dated between 10,220 ± 75 and 12,615 ± 95 years (BP) were found, suggesting human presence.〔Siebe ''et al.'' (1999)〕 Agriculture around the lake began about 7,000 years ago,〔Niederberger (1979)〕 with humans following the patterns of periodic inundations of the lake. On the northeast side of the lake, between 1700 and 1250 BCE, several villages appear. By 1250 BCE, the identifying signs of the Tlatilco culture, including more complex settlements and a stratified social structure, are seen around the lake. By roughly 800 BCE, Cuicuilco had eclipsed the Tlatilco cultural centers and was the major power in the Valley of Mexico during the next 200 years, when its famous conical pyramid was built. The Xitle volcano destroyed Cuicuilco around 30 CE, a destruction that may have given rise to Teotihuacan. After the fall of Teotihuacan, 600–800 CE, several other city states appeared around the lake, including Xoloc, Azcapotzalco, Tlacopan, Coyohuacan, Culhuacán, Chimalpa and Chimalhuacán – mainly from Toltec and Chichimeca influence. None of these predominated and they coexisted more or less in peace for several centuries. This time was described as a Golden age in Aztec chronicles. By the year 1300, however, the Tepanec from Azcapotzalco were beginning to dominate the area. If Tenochtitlan was the capital city of the Aztec Empire, and Mexico City the capital of Mexico, then Lake Texcoco is the Lake of the capitals, and therefore very important to Mesoamerican history. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lake Texcoco」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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