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Want to learn more? Explore the major concepts, places, cultures, and themes that Southwestern archaeologists are exploring today in our Introduction to Southwestern Archaeology. European settlers actually cleared out and reused many Hohokam canals hundreds of years later. There are more than 500 miles of documented canals in the region, representing the largest-scale irrigation in North America. Their vast canal networks include some canals more than 20 miles long. People in the Hohokam region employed massive-scale irrigation farming. Throughout their history, potters in the Hohokam region produced brown (in the Tucson Basin area) and buff (in the Phoenix Basin area) ware pottery, sometimes painted with geometric designs or life forms in red. Compound B at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument has two platform mounds. Larger villages then had a different kind of central construction: large platform mounds, often with structures on top, that appear to have been the place for religious and political activities. 1150 or 1200, people in the Hohokam region began building their houses as aboveground compounds within a walled courtyard. People probably used these for gatherings and for a ball game that was probably similar to those played among Mesoamerican societies. 8, many villages also had large earthen constructions that archaeologists identify as ballcourts. Archaeologists find these dwellings in sets of three or four around small courtyards. CiaccioĮarly Hohokam settlements consist of clusters of shallow pithouses. Note the pithouse architecture and the decorated and undecorated pottery. This Hohokam community thrived in the northwest Tucson Basin.
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The largest mounds in the Salt River Valley reached up to 30 feet high and were as big as a football field.People who resided in the Hohokam (ho-ho-kahm) region were probably among the ancestors of contemporary southern desert populations, such as the O’odham, as well as Pueblo populations and perhaps other populations in northern Mexico. Structures would be built on top of the finished mound. The top was covered with a natural cement made of calcium carbonate called caliche. Other cells would be built around it, and the structure would be filled with trash and soil. The Hohokam started by building a single cell made of adobe, granite, and sandstone. The construction of these platforms was pretty simple. By 1250, however, the Hohokams began to build homes for their leaders and priests, as well as temples on top of the mounds. The Hohokams usually built the mounds along major canals, and initially did not build structures on top. At the culture’s peak, there must have been around a hundred platform mounds. As much as fifty platform mounds were discovered in thirty Hohokam villages in recent years. Many of these earthworks can be found in Pueblo Grande, Mesa Grande, Plaza Tempe, and Tres Pueblos. Platform mounds were typically rectangular in shape which covered an area of hundreds to thousands of square feet and reached up to ten feet high. The earliest mounds were built around 800 AD, but the majority were constructed between 11 AD. The Hohokam settlements showed a distinct Mesoamerican influence, as shown in the ballcourt and platform mounds they constructed.
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Hohokam Platform Mounds “Map of Hohokam and neighboring cultures, c. They have been primarily noted for their development of irrigation and their construction of elaborate water control and distribution systems. Learn facts that you can’t learn just from reading the BibleĪttractive design ideal for your home, office, church … The people we call 'Hohokam' occupied the greater part of central and southern Arizona for more than a thousand years. Unique Circular Format – see more in less space. Quickly See 6000 Years of Bible and World History Together These Articles are Written by the Publishers of The Amazing Bible Timeline
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