[1] Fifteen excavations have been done in this area, uncovering mammoth bones, stone tools and other artifacts showing human habitation from at least 7000 B.C.

According to some traditions in the historico-mythical accounts of the 16th century Nahuas, early Nahuatl-speaking groups ("pre-Aztecs", called also Chichimeca) invaded the area from the north around 968 BC.

[1] After the fall of Tenochtitlán to the Spaniards under Hernán Cortés, the Aztecs of this area continued to fight against the Spanish conquest, supporting the lord of Texcoco.

[1] San Salvador Atenco received wide media coverage both in 2002[2][3][4] and 2006, when it was the site of violent mass protests against the federal and local governments.

The latter confrontation marked the beginning of the 2006 Atenco Riots, which lasted over a week and resulted in over 100 arrests and numerous allegations of human rights abuses committed by the police against the local population, including the detention of forty women, eleven of whom claimed they were sexually assaulted while in detention and who subsequently brought a case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, alleging, in part, that the abuses were the result of a crackdown ordered by Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who at the time was governor of the state of Mexico.