Lake Herrera is a small lake located at from the urban centre of

Mosquera Mosquera is a Spanish surname (first name) originally from Galicia (Spain). The family crest states (Spanish) Gallego. It derives from the mansion of the family's founder, Ramiro de Mosquera. In the fifth century, it was already linked to ''Moscos ...

and about west of the capital

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...

in Cundinamarca,

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. The

Andean The Andes, Andes Mountains or Andean Mountains (; ) are the longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range is long, wide (widest between 18°S – 20°S l ...

lake has made its name in the Herrera Period, the period in the history of central Colombia before the Muisca Period, after

archaeologist Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

Sylvia Broadbent excavated

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

s around Lake Herrera in 1971.

Description

Lake Herrera is situated on the

Bogotá savanna The Bogotá savanna is a montane savanna, located in the southwestern part of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the center of Colombia. The Bogotá savanna has an extent of and an average altitude of . The savanna is situated in the Eastern Range ...

; the southwestern part of the Andean high plateau in the

Eastern Ranges The Eastern Ranges is an Australian rules football team in the NAB League, the Victorian statewide under-18s competition. The club is a founding member of the competition (1992) and has produced several players for the Australian Football Leag ...

; the

Altiplano Cundiboyacense The Altiplano Cundiboyacense () is a high plateau located in the Eastern Cordillera of the Colombian Andes covering parts of the departments of Cundinamarca and Boyacá. The altiplano corresponds to the ancient territory of the Muisca. The Alti ...

. The lake is one of many remainders of the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological Epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fina ...

Lake Humboldt Lake Humboldt or Humboldt Lake is an endorheic basin lake in northern Churchill County and southern Pershing County in the state of Nevada in the United States. The lake has the name of Alexander von Humboldt, a German natural scientist. The la ...

. It is the largest remaining natural water reserve on the Bogotá savanna and the reserve belongs to the

municipalities A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

Mosquera,

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

and Bojacá.Lake Herrera largest water reserve of the Bogotá savanna
/ref>

History

Investigations by archaeologist

Gonzalo Correal Urrego Gonzalo Correal Urrego ( Gachalá, Colombia, 23 October 1939) is a Colombian anthropologist, palaeontologist and archaeologist.

in 1984 have revealed the existence of a preceramic site with two layers. The oldest layer has been dated at 3410 years BP and the younger layer at 3135 BP.Excavations Correal Urrego around Lake Herrera
/ref> Correal Urrego has discovered preceramic tools and wooden beams in horizontal position, possibly used to against the lake overflowing. Different stone tools found are scrapers and chips with sharp edges. Other tools were handles, and

white-tailed deer The white-tailed deer (''Odocoileus virginianus''), also known as the whitetail or Virginia deer, is a medium-sized deer native to North America, Central America, and South America as far south as Peru and Bolivia. It has also been introduced t ...

bone tools for perforation, scraping and cutting. Evidence of fireplaces and burial grounds has been uncovered. One of the burial sites contained a full skeleton surrounded by five skulls. Remains of fauna collected by the

hunter-gatherer A traditional hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living an ancestrally derived lifestyle in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local sources, especially edible wild plants but also insects, fungi, ...

s were mammals, birds and snails. The presence of

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron (mafic lava) exposed at or very near the planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

, not formed on the Altiplano, indicated movement from the

Magdalena Valley The Magdalena River Valley ( es, Valle del Río Magdalena) is a valley in Colombia located within the Colombian Andes. The valley is specifically situated between the Central and Eastern Ranges and crossed by the river of the same name, the Magda ...

. When the climatic conditions became drier and layers of

volcanic ash Volcanic ash consists of fragments of rock, mineral crystals, and volcanic glass, created during volcano, volcanic eruptions and measuring less than 2 mm (0.079 inches) in diameter. The term volcanic ash is also often loosely used t ...

were deposited around the lake in the first millennium BCE, the inhabitants of the region started to develop

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

around the lake. Later excavations have provided ceramic with a typical red colour, rich in SiO₂. The lake is a residual part of Lake Humboldt, but since 1973 functions as an artificial lake after the construction of drainage channels. The lake is fed from the Bojacá River from the northeast and from the San José channel, fed by the

Bogotá River The Bogotá River is a major river of the Cundinamarca department of Colombia. A right tributary of the Magdalena River, the Bogotá River crosses the region from the northeast to the southwest and passing along the western limits of Bogotá. The ...

in the southwest. Between 1969 and 2013 the surface area of the lake has been reduced with . Recent

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

activities close to the lake endanger the environment of Lake Herrera, formalised a water reserve on July 23, 2006.

Biodiversity

Flora and fauna around the lake is endangered and migrating birds use Lake Herrera. Several species have been found and described in and around the lake: * thickhead ground snake (''Atractus crassicaudatus'') * '' Cheilanthes myriophylla'' * '' Drymaeus nigrofasciatus'' * '' Stenocercus trachycephalus''

Tourism

The lake can be visited and walked around, although some parts are privately owned and access permits have to be arranged.

Trivia

* Another name for Lake Herrera and its surroundings is Sabrisky DesertSabrisky Desert around Lake Herrera
/ref>

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

*
Video Lake Herrera
{{Muisca navbox, Geography and history, state=expanded Geography of Cundinamarca Department Herrera Former populated places in Colombia Herrera Tourist attractions near Bogotá Herrera Herrera Altiplano Cundiboyacense Archaeological sites in Colombia