Although falling into disrepair, mormon pioneers would build upon their work, constructing their first major canal, using an already dug-out Hohokam canal.ДЄll but a few of the ancient waterways are now gone-having been leveled over to build modern society and almost entirely forgotten. For reasons unknown, the Hohokam would leave the valley by 1450 A.D., abandoning their canals and what seemed to be a prosperous society. Communities became linked, not just in the physical sense of the canals, but also in the cooperation of their management. The largests of these canals reached as far as twelve miles long, and some as deep as fifteen feet! All this is made more impressive when you consider they accomplished all this through wooden digging sticks and baskets, to move literal tons of dirt.

Their agricultural technology influenced other cultures of their time, such as the Sinaqua. Trade extended far north to the Anasazi, and east to the Mogollon, but it even reached the Pacific coast, and down into Mexico. The Hohokam were farmers, and grew beans, squash, corn, agave, and even cotton, which became a preferred export crop. These prehistoric waterways supported no less than 30,000 people-maybe twice that, according to some estimates-and many thousands of acres courtesy of This incredible innovation is what made life in the unforgiving Arizona desert possible. Some canals may have been as small as a foot across. They went on to build an extensive network of over five-hundred miles of irrigation canals, starting at the Salt River and the Gila River, where, they would typically build a large main ditch, then, like a reverse-root system, a number of canals, each smaller than the other, would carry water to their fields and along the banks of their villages. And yet, in context, this seemingly insignificant building is every bit as impressive of a feat as those. Similarly, it was built nearly two thousand years after the Great Wall of China, and 1300 years after RomeвЂ™s Colosseum.

It is believed that the Hohokam entered the region sometime around 300 B.C. Casa Grande was built in about 1350 CE, nearly four millennia after the Pyramids of Egypt. ThatвЂ™s right! And, itвЂ™s far from the only one in the Salt River Valley. What youвЂ™re looking at, right here, is an ancient irrigation canal just north of downtown Tempe, Arizona. Browse Articles Summaries from our last issue, Fall 2016ДЄmerican Archaeology Magazine is available on Newsstands and at Bookstores, Annual Subscriptions are available by becoming a Member of the Archaeological Conservancy for a Donation of $30 dollars. Browse Content of this Issue: Winter 2016-2017. Read More in our Winter 2016-2017 Issue of American Archaeology, Vol. The symbols almost certainly meant different things to different people, and meanings probably changed through time.вЂќ Absent a rock art Rosetta stone, past attempts to divine the meaning of these symbols have been fraught with such ambiguity and unverifiable interpretations that rock art studies were often dismissed as fringe science.Д«ut WrightвЂ™s five-year study of Hohokam petroglyphs in ArizonaвЂ™s South Mountains, published in the 2014 book Religion on the Rocks, suggested a way in which the work of ancient artists can be as useful a tool for archaeologists as other diagnostic artifacts and features.

вЂњIconography is difficult to interpret with any surety. So the Hohokam civilization of Arizona built and maintained an intricate system of canals that not only protected them from the floods but also provided a network of irrigation and water supply that benefited them greatly. вЂњRock art has never been as amenable to scientific, quantitative analysis as ceramics, tools, and other artifact classes,вЂќ said Aaron Wright of Archaeology Southwest, a Tucson based non-profit organization dedicated to preserving archaeological resources. In recent years, however, a new perspective has emerged-one that reflects a growing effort to transform rock art analysis from a neglected stepchild of archaeology into a more useful tool for the study of the Hohokam as well as other ancient cultures. 400вЂ“1450, embraced the same mountains as a sacred landscape, and adorned them with thousands of rock art images that endure today.ДЄlthough archaeological investigations of the Hohokam have focused on their population centers and the vast network of irrigation canals they built along the Salt and Gila rivers, Hohokam rock art is not new to archaeologists. The Hohokam, the prehistoric people who populated the Phoenix Basin from approximately A.D. But the cityвЂ™s denizens werenвЂ™t the first to appreciate the striking beauty of the South Mountains craggy landscape. In 1924, this area became one of the largest municipal parks in the country. Residents of Phoenix long ago recognized something special about the rugged mountains that rise from the desert south of the city.

Hohokam irrigation year