ABSTRACT
The area between the modern cities of Tepeaca and Acatzingo contains numerous filtration galleries (galerías filtrantes) that are generally believed to have been constructed between the Spanish conquest of Mexico in the sixteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. However, important pre-Hispanic population centers in the same area also developed systems for the collection of water by exploiting the hydrographic properties of the sedimentary geology of the region. The continuity and periodization of elaboration of water collection systems in this area, which had their origin in prehistoric times and which climaxed with the post-conquest construction of extensive networks of galerías filtrantes, is poorly understood. Within a historic and hydrographic context, we examine the details of the use of pre-Hispanic hydraulic system and their relation to the later galerías filtrantes in the Tepeaca-Acatzingo region * (Figure 28.1).
