The Hohokam of Southern Arizona:
Geologic Environment and Agriculture Barney Paul Popkin The Hohokam, their culture and agriculture:
Picture, if you will, a scene taking place in what is now Phoe- nix at some time between more than 4,000 years ago and 600 years ago: The twenty-five Hohokam elders slowly gather in the tribal meeting hall, a semi-subterranean mud-walled, mud and palm-thatched building with its floor recessed a yard below ground. The hall is at the east foot of what is now called Sentinel Peak or A-Mountain (Figure 1), just west of the Santa Cruz River in present-day Tucson, Arizona, in the surprisingly lush Sonoran Desert.
The elders meet this week to plan pre-summer monsoon planting, crop irrigation, community ball court games, har- vests, hunting excursions, marriages and the supply of salt from Sonora and the Gulf of California as well as food, fiber and the management of water in their extensive irrigation systems (Figure 2 on page 5). The Ho- hokam supplement their primarily plant-food diet with meat. They have no domestic animals except the dog. Since they have no livestock (unlike some neighboring southwestern peoples, who have domesticated the turkey), meat is obtained by hunting and trapping. Deer and rabbit are important meat sources, but they also eat mountain sheep, ante- lope, mice and squirrels.
The tribal elders meet every year during the May full moon to focus on management of the upcoming summer monsoon. Each clan’s elder represents a cluster of families eager to plant summer crops to take advantage of the semi- annual rains. The normal flows of the Santa Cruz, like the Gila and Salt Rivers to the north, provide nearly peren- nial fresh water, skimmed off by main, lateral and on-farm hand-dug earthen canals. The canals provide sustainable water for general family use and crop irrigation as they’ve done for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years.
The earliest Spanish historical accounts, and geologic and hydrologic studies, indicate that the Santa Cruz
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Figure 1 .Tucson, AZ, location map showing places mentioned in text. ‘A’ Mountain is at bottom left. Image Source: Open Street Map.
www.aipg.org
(Pre-)Historic preservation & forgery: The irrigation works of the Hohokam are threatened by urban development, but although there has been some unfortunate vandalism of Hohokam petroglyphs or “rock art,” there is no record of fraud or fake Hohokam artifacts. However, in September 1924 lead crosses were “discovered” at an abandoned lime kiln site on Tucson’s North Silverbell Road north of West Sunset Road (3 mi NW of NW corner of Figure 1), giving rise to a remarkably popular story that Romans had settled Arizona. The ruse was uncovered when it was noted the cross-engraved letters were copied from ancient texts, misspelled words included.
River only flowed perennially in about six locations along its total length. One of those perennial flows was in the San Xavier vicinity and another at the base of ‘A’ Mountain. Unfortunately,
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