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Ethnobotany of the Aztecs

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Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures

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The Aztecs represented the ruling empire in Mexico when the Spaniards arrived there in 1519. It was their culture that came in close – and for the Aztecs disastrous – contact with the Europeans. The Aztecs were a rather young culture. Starting as a small tribe in the thirteenth century, they developed into the ruling culture in Mexico. At the arrival of the Spaniards in 1519, the Aztecs ruled Central Mexico from their splendid capital Tenochtitlan, situated at the place where Mexico City is now located.

Ethnobotany in its broadest sense is the part of botany that deals with the use of plants in religion, medicine, all aspects of social life, and their interrelationships. The Aztecs used a very large number of plants. We know that because a lot were written down in the early years after the conquest. Because of space limitations, only a few aspects of Aztec ethnobotany will be dealt with in this article. The focus is on some plants that were especially important for the Aztecs....

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Authors
  1. Jan G. R. Elferink
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Hampshire College, 893 West Street, 01002, Amherst, MA, USA

    Helaine Selin (Editor) (Editor)

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York

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Elferink, J.G.R. (2008). Ethnobotany of the Aztecs. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8584

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_8584

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-4559-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-4425-0

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