CULTURE :
The word culture itself comes from the Latin root colere (to inhabit, to
cultivate, or to honor). In general, it refers to human activity; different
definitions of culture reflect different theories for understanding, or criteria
for valuing, human activity. Anthropologists use the term to refer to the
universal human capacity to classify experiences, and to encode and communicate
them symbolically. They regard this capacity as a defining feature of the genus
Homo.
SOCIETY:
Society is a system, composed of many parts, which we call members, and which
are intelligent systems or societies themselves. Since the basic building block
of societies is the intelligent system, it has all the properties of an
intelligent system. It may have other properties, since it is composed of many
intelligent systems. It is is made up of people, groups, networks, institutions,
organizations and systems. These aspects of society may include local, national
and international patterns of relationships. People belong to informal and
formal groups, and within and between these groups there are patterns of
interactions.
AZTECH OR VALLEY OF MEXICO :
From the 13th century, the Valley of Mexico was the heart of Aztec civilization:
here the capital of the Aztec Triple Alliance, the city of Tenochtitlan, was
built upon raised islets in Lake Texcoco. The Triple Alliance formed its
tributary empire expanding its political hegemony far beyond the Valley of
Mexico, conquering other city states throughout Mesoamerica. At its pinnacle
Aztec culture had rich and complex mythological and religious traditions, as
well as reaching remarkable architectural and artistic accomplishments.
In 1521, in what is probably the most widely known episode in the Spanish
colonization of the Americas, Hernán Cortés, along with a large number of
Nahuatl speaking indigenous allies, conquered Tenochtitlan and defeated the
Aztec Triple Alliance under the leadership of Hueyi Tlatoani Moctezuma II; In
the series of events often referred to as "The Fall of the Aztec Empire".
Subsequently the Spanish founded the new settlement of Mexico City on the site
of the ruined Aztec capital.
Aztec culture and history is primarily known through archaeological evidence
found in excavations such as that of the renowned Templo Mayor in Mexico City
and many others, from indigenous bark paper codices, from eyewitness accounts by
Spanish conquistadors such as Hernán Cortés and Bernal Díaz del Castillo, and
especially from 16th and 17th century descriptions of Aztec culture and history
written by Spanish clergymen and literate Aztecs in the Spanish or Nahuatl
language, such as the famous Florentine Codex compiled by the Franciscan monk
Bernardino de Sahagún with the help of indigenous Aztec informants.