I don’t know where exactly maize was cultivated, but Mexico comes from city Mexico-Tenochtitlan.
They found millenia old traces of maize in the valley of the Rio Balsa in Xihuatoxtla and also in the valley of Tehuacán.
Something about Coxcatlán phase. Couldn’t find a name of a people who would have been responsible for the domestication.
It’s easiest to say it happened in Mesoamerica.
pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Well before Mexico, it was the Aztecs
HorreC@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
there was never a Aztec people that was the name someone made up. The [Mexica] (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztecs) people are the ones you are talking about.
Mulligrubs@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Someone has made up every name for every thing
HorreC@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
No, the people literally called themselves Mexica, they chose to call them Aztecs because they thought it would confuse the people.
Katrisia@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Aztlán was the place they said they came from (probably in today’s U.S. territory). The “Aztecs” called themselves “Mexica”. That’s also their name in Spanish, and I have a faded memory that it is not the name in English only because an anthropologist had trouble pronouncing it or something. Whatever.
Mexicas (meh - SHE - kahs) founded Tenochtitlan. After its fall, you are right, Mexico was named ‘Mexico’ from Nahuatl but people pronounced and pronounce it ‘MEH - hee - koh’ because of the Spanish language influence (think, as in Quixote, ‘kee - HO - teh’).
There were Mexican intellectuals pushing for a ‘meh - SHEE - koh’ pronunciation in the 20th century, but they failed miserably.
MadBigote@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Theres no such thing as Aztecs. Its Mexicas at best, but there existed several heterogenous cultures in the region, like the Olmecs.