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It looks today like the most brutal and the most complete replacement
of one culture by another that you could possibly imagine.
As you stand in the Zocalo, the main square of Mexico City,
the palace of the Spanish viceroys stands on the very site of the demolished palace of Montezuma.
Along the street, you can see the ruins of what was once the Aztec temple.
And the sacred Aztec precinct is now largely taken up by the huge Spanish Baroque cathedral
dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
From here, it looks as if the Spanish conquest of Mexico in 1521
was in every way cataclysmic for indigenous traditions,
and that is how the story has often been told.
The reality, however, was more gradual and perhaps more interesting.
The local people kept their own languages;
they also kept their own land for the most part,
although the hideous consequences of the disease that the Spanish had brought with them
unwittingly meant that much land was freed up for the new settlers from Spain.
Apart from disease, the most significant new aspect of Mexican life under the Spanish was their religion.
Catholic missionaries came with the conquerors in the 1520s, and they transformed the spiritual landscape.
Now, 500 years later, over 80 percent of the population of Mexico is Catholic.
In the process, the physical landscape changed too.