Objective:

During the pre-Hispanic agricultural period (Herrera, Early Muisca and Late Muisca periods), the inhabitants of the Sabana de Bogotá transformed a wetland ecological environment and with lagoons and wetlands, into a dynamic territory, by building a hydraulic system of raised platforms for cultivation, interspersed by channels for flood control (camellones). With the Spanish invasion and the colonization process, this form of building territoriality, based on water management, was transformed into a different form of land ownership and exploitation focused on livestock and cereal cultivation. The objective of this investigation is to establish to what extent these agricultural practices have survived, in what spaces of the Sabana and how they have been reinterpreted to integrate into the new reality of colonization.

Methodology:

For this, an interdisciplinary analysis was developed, where data from archeology, paleoecology and documentary sources from the 16th and 17th centuries were integrated.

Originality:

This article discusses how this process of restructuring the territory in the Sabana took place, from the perspective of the Muiscas, in the second half of the 16th century, using the hydraulic system as an axis of analysis.

Conclusion:

It was found that the hydraulic system survived only in a fragmented way and within the reserves, through the use of checkered camellones, which controlled flooding by a high level of the water table without needing large drainage channels.