Infrared Aerial Photography and Prehispanic Irrigation at Teotihuacán: The Tlajinga Canals

Abstract

Locating and dating remains of pre-Aztec hydraulic agricultural systems in the Basin of Mexico with conventional reconnaissance and survey methods is problematic. Near-infrared aerial photographs have revealed buried linear features resembling irrigation canals in several areas including the Tlajinga section of the pre-Columbian city of Teotihuacán. Excavations confirmed that the features are prehispanic floodwater irrigation canals. The most recent ones date to the Late Aztec period; the earliest canals were probably constructed in Teotihuacán times although this cannot be demonstrated conclusively because of mixing of deposits.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 19 citations exist upstream.