The city is located in the Valley of Anahuac, whose caves show evidence of human inhabitation since about 2,500 B.C. The area was under the control and influence of the Teotihuacán culture when the city was at its height. After its fall, the area was control of a Chichimeca chief named Chicontonatiuh, whose government was based in Quetzaltepec by 637, and remained under Chichimeca control until the Spanish conquest, avoiding absorption into the Aztec Empire when Ayactlacatzin negotiated with Moctezuma Xocoyotzin to keep it independent in 1408. After the Spanish Conquest, the area came under the governorship of Juan de Ortega in 1546 with the governing entity at Cuautitlán. The area was evangelized by Brothers Alonso de Guadalupe and Alonso de Herrera who had a hermitage constructed in 1525; nowadays, it is the Temple of Saint Peter the Apostle. The town became an ecclesiastical center for the indigenous around 1547. In 1585, the college for novitiates of San Pedro y San Pablo was moved here. The Jesuits initiated a number of archtectural works here including a college (now the Museo Nacional del Virreinato (National Museum of the Viceroyalty)), the aqueducts of Xalpa also known as the Arcos del Sitio, and the Temple of San Francisco Javier, which was initiated by Diego de Sierra in 1670.