In the arid desert environment of the Salt and Gila River Valleys, the homeland of the Hohokam, there was not enough rainfall to grow crops. The Hohokam were the only culture in North America to rely on irrigation canals to supply water to their crops. O'odham water control gate in historic period irrigation canal.
Omar Turney map of 1929 showing prehistoric irrigation canals north and south of the Salt River in the Phoenix area.Ĭarla Booker and Alexandra Howard recording a prehistoric canal exposed in a trench at the Riverview development in Mesa. This group might have occupied southern Arizona as early as 2000 BC! Originating as archaic hunters and gatherers who lived on wild plants and animals, these peoples settled in permanent communities and produced their own food instead of living a more mobile life and gathering what nature provided. Called the Early Agricultural Period, this early group grew corn, lived in sedentary villages all year round and developed sophisticated irrigation canals. Archaeologists identified a culture and people that were ancestors of the Hohokam. In the 1990s, a major archaeological dig along the Santa Cruz River in Tucson resulted in a startling discovery. Early archaeologists proposed that Hohokam culture developed in Mexico and moved into what is now Arizona. Where did Hohokam culture come from? To the first scientists who asked this question, the Hohokam seemed to appear in Arizona quite suddenly with the ability to build sophisticated irrigation system to water their crops.
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