This volume presents the research design constructed to guide both the field work and analysis stages of the Las Colinas Project. It is the first in a series of seven volumes covering the project; the remaining volumes will document and interpret the substantive results of the research. The seven volumes are collectively designated as Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series 162.

This volume is one of several substantive reports detailing the results of the 1982-1984 excavations at Las Colinas. This series of reports is collectively designated Arizona State Museum Archaeological Series 162. The research design constructed to guide the investigations has been published as Volume 1. Other volumes deal with material culture, site structure, and the Mound 8 precinct. This volume presents the results of the environmental studies carried out as a part of project research.

The analyses of artifacts recovered during the 1982-1984 excavations at Las Colinas are described in this volume. Temporal variation was addressed using the traditional Hohokam chronology and the site-specific chronology defined in Volume 2. Spatial contrasts focused on distinctions between the Mound 8 assemblages and those of the surrounding residential area. A discussion of mortuary practices that emphasizes the nature of associated artifacts is presented in the final chapter.

This is last of the seven volumes collectively designated Archaeological Series 162. In Part I of this volume, the provenience system used during the 1982-1984 excavations at Las Colinas and the computer procedures used in processing the enormous volume of data that resulted from those excavations are explained, and the results of some special analyses are presented. Artifact data are provided in tabular form in Part II. Other volumes in this series provide the project research design (Volume...

This is the sixth in a series of seven volumes reporting results of archaeological investigations at Las Colinas, a predominantly Sedentary and Classic period settlement on the Salt River within the boundaries of what is today urban Phoenix. Excavations at Las Colinas were funded by the Arizona Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, with the additional support of the University of Arizona during report preparation and publication phases of the project. Work was...

The principal focus of this volume is a reconsideration of the construction history and organization of the Mound 8 precinct at Las Colinas. Seven stages of mound construction were identified, with some changes in construction methods and mound configuration over time. As a consequence, Mound 8 provides a record of the transition from an earlier mound form, similar to some stages of the pre-Classic mound at the Gatlin Site, to a later form similar to patterns evident in other Classic period...

In this volume the features and deposits discovered and excavated at Las Colinas outside the Mound 8 precinct are described. The nature of the sample recovered from Las Colinas, the chronology and history of the occupation, and the geomorphology and natural stratigraphy of the site area are covered in Chapters 1 through 4, providing the groundwork for the remaining chapters and for the other volumes in the report series. The major classes of features discovered at the site--structures,...

In 1987, the Bureau of Reclamation directed Northland Research, Inc. to complete a Class I and III cultural resource literature search and survey for the proposed site of the Florence Water Treatment Plant and its associated delivery lines, an element of the Central Arizona Project located near the Salt-Gila Aqueduct. Three archaeological loci representing Hohokam use of the area were recorded in or near the project area. In order to evaluate the loci within the context of the intensive site...

The following report contains the description and interpretation of archaeological data recently recovered from AZ T:8:31 (ASU), AZ T:8:35 (ASU), and AZ T:8:38 (ASU). Situated within south-central Arizona, these sites form an integral part of the Cave Creek Archaeological District. Impact on these cultural resources will result from construction along Reach 10 of the Granite Reef Aqueduct, a feature of the Central Arizona Project. A plan to mitigate this adverse impact through a program of...

This report presents the results of combined archaeological testing and excavation conducted at the Dutch Canal ruin site within the Interstate 10, Papago Freeway corridor, Phoenix, Arizona. The project was sponsored by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) and the Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA) was contracted by HNTB Engineers, consultants to ADOT, to complete the archaeological studies. Field work was conducted during May, June and July, 1986. Prehistoric resources identified...

This report presents the results of the archaeological excavation of a prehistoric Hohokam village known as the Grand canal Ruins (AZ T:12:14(ASU) and AZ T:12:16 (ASU)). Excavations were performed at the site in 1986 in advance of the Squaw Peak Parkway, a city-funded transportation project located in Phoenix, Arizona. The archaeological work was conducted by Soil Systems, Inc., for the City of Phoenix under Contract Nos. 41116 and 42877. The Grand Canal Ruins represent a large Classic period...

This report presents the results of the archaeological excavation of a prehistoric Hohokam village known as the Grand canal Ruins (AZ T:12:14(ASU) and AZ T:12:16(ASU)). Excavations were performed at the site in 1986 in advance of the Squaw Peak Parkway, a city-funded transportation project located in Phoenix, Arizona. The archaeological work was conducted by Soil Systems, Inc., for the City of Phoenix under Contract Nos. 41116 and 42877. The Grand Canal Ruins represent a large Classic period...

Paper presented at the IX International Pollen Conference, Archaeological Palynology Symposium, Houston TX.

The spring 2004 pilot archaeological research at La Plata Pueblo was designed to begin acquiring data concerning the distribution, contents, and depth of midden deposits at the site. Midden of some depth is necessary for the Legacies project goals in order to obtain sufficient samples of 1) ceramics for an accumulations study and 2) well-preserved faunal and floral remains for comparative analysis with contemporary data on plant and animal distributions. Our data collection strategy involved a...

This document contains descriptions of sites within the Schuk Toak and San Xavier study areas. These site descriptions include information on site dimensions, cultural features, and types of artifacts. The relationships between features and artifacts as well as any disturbance to the sites are also discussed. The document also discusses collection strategies used within the project, and finally, it evaluates the site occupation time periods along with site function as well.

An Archaeological survey in the Cave Creek drainage was undertaken as the result of a contract agreement to assess the archaeological resource base of the proposed Cave Buttes Dam Alternative Site and Reservoir. The research strategy was operationalized by implementing a rigorous sampling program designed to extract a representative sample of existing prehistoric remains. The research area coincided generally with an open creosote terrace and the 50 percent positive recovery of archaeological...

During December, 1990, archaeologists from SWCA, Inc. Environmental Consultants of Tucson, Arizona, conducted an archaeological testing program on the southernmost portions of Valencia Site, AZ BB:13:15 (ASM). The Valencia Site is known to represent the remains of a major Tucson Basin Preclassic period Hohokam village. Previous investigations of this site by the Institute for American Research had indicated that the current study area had a low surface artifact density and a low probability for...

During the summer of 1988, archaeologists from Archaeological Consulting Services of Tempe, Arizona, conducted an archaeological survey of 220 acres in the vicinity of Lake Pleasant Regional Park located northwest of Phoenix. This survey was conducted in order to provide inventory and assessment of the cultural resources that might be affected by the proposed exchange of this parcel to the Maricopa County Water Conservation District by the Bureau of Reclamation. This survey resulted in the...

Volume 2 describes the prehistoric features, excluding the platform mound and its adjacent compound, that have been excavated at Pueblo Grande Cultural Park, a 102-acre portion of the prehistoric site owned by the City of Phoenix (see Downum and Bostwick, Volume 1:Chapter 1). This city park encompasses the central precinct of the Pueblo Grande site. Data curated in the Pueblo Grande Museum Archive (PGMA) concerning the non-platform mound features are compiled and synthesized here, with the...

Pueblo Grande is a special place. The subject of legend both ancient and modern, it is one of the most impressive and familiar of all surviving Hohokam sites. Until recently, any visitor could plainly see from exposed rooms, deteriorating walls, and eroding test holes and tunnels that Pueblo Grande had been extensively excavated. It would have been logical to assume from this evidence that the site was one of the most famous and best documented of all Classic period Hohokam villages. Until the...

Few things in Southwestern archaeology are so widely and hotly contested as the Hohokam phase sequence and chronology. Presently, no fewer than 12 different Hohokam chronologies exist and more appear to be under production. Disputes concerning the Hohokam chronology involve not only the dating of phases but also, even more basically, challenges to the integrity of the phase definitions. In the last decade, controversy has focused on three aspects of the chronology; (1) the validity and ordering...

In 1978, the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) directed the Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA) to complete an intensive archaeological survey of the proposed alignment for the Salt-Gila Aqueduct, a feature of the Central Arizona Project. The survey area was 11,115 acres and included the 60 mile-long transmission line (with a typical width of 200 meters), three proposed utility line locations, one flood retention dike location, 11 possible spoil or realignment areas, and a subsidence well....

The Western Archeological and Conservation Center, National Park Service conducted archeological inventory surveys of selected portions of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southwestern Arizona between 1989 and 1991. The section 110 planning surveys (ORPI 1989 D, 1990B and 1991A) were undertaken to locate, identify and evaluate the cultural resources of the monument. A total of 7,675 acres was surveyed and 188 field loci, representing 178 sites, were recorded. Five of these sites had been...

The Western Archeological and Conservation Center conducted an archeological survey in the cactus forest area of Saguaro National Monument, Rincon Mountain Unit, in the eastern Tucson Basin. A total of 160 prehistoric and historic sites and 401 isolated artifact/limited activity areas was recorded. Prehistoric sites include a small rockshelter, bedrock mortar locations, quarries, and artifact scatters, including large village sites with agricultural features. Historic sites include early...

The second phase of an archeological inventory of Saguaro National MOnument, Rincon Mountain Unit involved examination of 10,000 acres between 3,000 and 4,000 feet elevation along Tanque Verde Ridge, the Rincon Creek headwaters area and selected high elevation areas in the Rincon Mountains. One hundred twenty archaeological sites and 202 isolated artifact locations were recorded. Seven types of prehistoric sites are described: rockshelters, bedrock mortar locations, lithic quarries,...

Archeologists from the Western Archeological and Conservation Center (WACC), National Park Service (NPS), conducted archeological surveys of newly acquired lands iu the Rincon Mountain District and Tucson Mountain District of Saguaro National Park during 1996, 1997, and 1998. The fieldwork encompassed four separate field data collection projects, building on previous WACC surveys from 1994 to 1996 and adding to the inventory of cultural resources iu the Park. Cumulative survey results now...

This volume reports on the findings of archeological survey conducted in the Saguaro National Monument in the late spring of 1994. The cultural resource inventory of 740 acres was conducted by four Western Archeological and Conservation Center archeologists between April 25 and May 20, 1994. The surveyed area included 360 acres of land included in the recently (1991) expanded boundary of the Rincon Mountain Unit (RMU) and 380 acres of heavily used land located in the northeast corner of the...

An archaeological clearance survey of the proposed Gila River Farms Expansion area was undertaken by Archaeological Consulting Services, Ltd. (ACS). This survey was performed in accordance with the provisions and regulations of the National Historic Preservation Act in order to locate, identify, and assess cultural resources that might be adversely impacted when the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) begins to utilize this land for agriculture. A total of four sites, four artifact scatters, and...

This document is a report upon cultural resources found in the western portion of the East Papago Freeway corridor. It represents the second phase of testing to be reported for the entire corridor, data recovery at three small sites suspected of being Hohokam fieldhouse loci (AZ T:12:48(ASM), AZ T:12:50(ASM), and AZ T:12:51(ASM)), and testing at El Caserío (AZ T:12:49 (ASM)) and La Lomita (AZ U:9:67(ASM)). The investigations reported herein were conducted by Soil Systems, Inc. of Phoenix for the...

On July 15, 1983, the chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) ratified a programmatic memorandum of agreement among the Arizona and New Mexico State Historic Preservation Officers (SHPOs), the Bureau of Reclamation, and the ACHP. The subject of that agreement was the construction of the Central Arizona Project (CAP) and its impact upon historic properties. That agreement was negotiated in compliance with Section 2(b) of Executive Order 11593, "Protection and Enhancement...

More than 1000 years ago, a people that archaeologists call the Hohokam first inhabited the deserts of what is now Arizona. They flourished for more than 70 generations in the lower Salt River Valley, the place where Phoenix now stands. Buried beneath the modern metropolis are the ruins of many aboriginal villages and a vast and elaborate irrigation network that may have watered 40,000 acres of cropland. (Jerry Howard completed this map, Figure 1, of the Hohokam irrigation canals and major...

One of several construction programs proposed for inclusion in the Central Arizona Project was a system of aqueducts to link Parker Dam on the Colorado River in western Arizona and the Charleston Damsite on the San Pedro River in southeastern Arizona. Since the possibility existed that archaeological remains might be destroyed by necessary subjugation of lands for the aqueduct, the Southwest Archaeological Center of the National Park Service, U. S. Department of the Interior, made arrangements...

Archeologists from the Western Archeological and Conservation Center (WACC), National Park Service (NPS) conducted archeological surveys of portions of the Tucson Mountain District (TMD) of Saguaro National Park between April 25 and May 24, 1995 and from May 21 to July 23, 1996. Archeological projects have been conducted in the Tucson Mountain District of the Park since 1965. To date more than 7,800 acres of the District's 24,500 acres have been surveyed for archeological remains and 105 sites...

The nature of Hohokam social organization has always been at the core of debates surrounding the prehistory of southern Arizona. Changing theoretical perspectives have shifted the directions and foci of controversy but the differences in these orientations can largely be described in terms of the assumptions made about social organization. A continuing thread to the arguments has been disagreement over the nature of power relationships in Hohokam society and the importance of such relationships...

This volume reports the results of excavations conducted at a small Colonial period Hohokam site in Phoenix, Arizona. Excavations were undertaken at El Caserío (AZ T:12:49(ASM)) as part of the East Papago Freeway Archaeological Project funded by the Arizona Department of Transportation under Contract 85 33. El Caserío contained several extramural surfaces, trash deposits, 20 pithouses, Decorated ceramic and a variety of miscellaneous pits. analyses and chronometric dates place the primary...

This report presents the results of archaeological data recovery at two prehistoric loci in Phoenix, Arizona. The major component investigated is a portion of the Classic period Hohokam village of Casa Buena (AZ T:12:37(ASM)). The smaller loci contains two temporal/functional components, a late Colonial period fieldhouse site and a Colonial to Sedentary period transition farmstead. The sites are located within the Squaw Peak Parkway corridor. The data recovery program was funded by the City of...

This report presents the results of archaeological data recovery at two prehistoric loci in Phoenix, Arizona. The major component investigated is a portion of the Classic period Hohokam village of Casa Buena (AZ T:12:37(ASM)). The smaller loci contains two temporal/functional components, a late Colonial period fieldhouse site and a Colonial to Sedentary period transition farmstead. The sites are located within the Squaw Peak Parkway corridor. The data recovery program was funded by the City of...

In the spring of 1973, the Western Archeological Center, National Park Service, conducted extensive surveys in the Papago Indian Reservation because of improvements proposed for several roadways (Stacy 1973). Among the numerous archeological features encountered were two prehistoric Hohokam sites. One of these, Gu Achi (AZ Z:12:l3 ASM) , is a major pre-Classic period Hohokam settlement a few miles west of Santa Rosa on Papago Indian Road (PIR) 34; the other site, Pisinimo, is a pre-Classic...

This report is a result of archaeological investigations at the prehistoric Hohokam site of La Lomita Pequeña (AZ U:9:66(ASM)) by Soil Systems, Inc. (SSI), Arizona. in the city of Phoenix, The site is within the path of the East Papago Freeway, a state funded freeway system in the Phoenix being constructed by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT). The site was tested, located initially by survey, was subsequently and was finally subjected to an intensive data recovery program sponsored...

This report describes the results of the field investigations of several sites located in the vicinity of Marana, Arizona. These investigations were undertaken by the Office of Cultural Resource Management, Arizona State University on behalf of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to mitigate the impacts on prehistoric sites resulting from the construction of the Reach 3 segment of the Tucson Aqueduct. The report provides a review of the field strategies and techniques used in the recovery of data and...

La Ciudad Phoenix was one of numerous Hohokam Indian villages that once were located about every three miles (4.8 kilometers) along extensive irrigation canals in the Salt and Gila river valleys. First founded in the early centuries A.D., La Ciudad endured for a millennium or more, evolving new forms of organization to meet life’s challenges on several scales of interaction, only to fail in the end when the Hohokam abandoned the Phoenix basin about A.D. 1450. The more archaeologists learn about...

From 1982 to 1990, a dozen archaeological sites associated with the Hohokam Canal System Two in the Phoenix Basin were excavated in anticipation of the construction of a network of freeways in the City of Phoenix (Figure 1). Ten of the excavation projects were funded through the Arizona Department of Transportation and two through the City of Phoenix Engineering Project; the work was conducted by the Arizona State Museum, the Museum of Northern Arizona, Arizona State University, and Soil...

In 1982, the Arizona Department of Transportation awarded a contract to the Office of Cultural Resource Management at Arizona State University for a data recovery program in the northern resource zone (Rice and Most 1982). Funding was provided through the Federal Highway Administration as part of a project to mitigate the impacts associated with the construction of the Papago-Loop of the I-10 Interstate Freeway. Our investigations were focused in the northern portion of the site in an area...

In 1850, the Phoenix Basin had been uninhabited for about 350 to 400 years. It was visited occasionally by hunting, fishing, or gathering parties from the Pima, Pee Posh, Yavapai or Apache, but the last people to have cleared farming fields, excavated canals, and built villages in the lower Salt River valley had been the Hohokam, and they had abandoned the area sometime between A.D. 1450 and 1500. This timeline is important to archaeologists because it means that the desert vegetation in the...

Northland Research, Inc. (Northland) has completed a Class III cultural resource survey of the Horseshoe Dam Borrow Area and Borrow Haul Road (Forest Road 479). This work was designated as Modification 03 of Task 13 of the Supplemental Surveys of the Regulatory Storage Division, Central Arizona Project (Plan 6), performed under Contract No. 7-CS-30-05750 issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation. The project area is located entirely on USDA Forest Service administered...

FIVE reports in one volume. 1. Dating Adamana Brown Ware Radiocarbon dating at five Basketmaker II period sites provide the first chronometric determinations for Adamana Brown ware, considered the earliest pottery on the Colorado Plateau. The radiocarbon dates indicate that production of the pottery began between A.D. 1 and A.D. 200 and possibly as early as 400 B.C. The pottery enjoyed long-lived use, possibly produced as late as A.D. 600. 2. Adamana Brown Ware Radiography Study Among...

The nineteenth-century farmers, merchants, and prospectors who settled in the Salt River Valley of Arizona encountered one of the most dense and most visible concentrations of prehistoric ruins in North America. They named their new city Phoenix because they envisioned it rising up from the ashes of the prehistoric Hohokam culture. One of the most pronounced features discovered was large irrigation canals that stretched across most of the valley floor--an ancient irrigation network, the...

Archaeological investigations were conducted at the prehistoric Hohokam Site ofLa Lomita (AZ U:9:67(ASM)) in Phoenix, Arizona, sponsored by the Arizona Department of Transportation. The portion of the site within the project area contained over 30 pithouses, 20 burials, several prehistoric canal segments, and numerous pits. La Lomita was primarily occupied during the late Santa Cruz and Sacaton phases, ranging from about A.D. 890 to 1025. Several house groups were identified, representing a...

While the archaeological work at Pueblo La Plata has begun to provide critical data concerning prehistoric demography, ceramic accumulations, and use of plants and animals, it was on the transect surveys that the collaboration between archaeological and ecological research came to fruition in the 2004 field season. This report discusses the data collection protocol that was developed to collect archaeological, small mammal, plant, and rock cover data on these transects, and presents preliminary...

Major study intended as the draft of a chapter in a report on the archaeological mitigation program for a populous Hohokam village in the Salt River Valley, Arizona. Though the study generated an unusually large body of well controlled archaeological-context palynological data, it did not result in the discovery of new information about Hohokam prehistory. Assessments of this failure, however, led to significant methodological lessons for archaeological pollen studies.

The Central Arizona Project (CAP) , Indian Distribution Division (IDD) is designed to deliver allocated CAP water to Indian users. The Middle Gila Basin Overview is the initial cultural resources planning study for the system. It summarizes and evaluates the extant data in an area 3,570 square miles (9,139 sq km) large, centered on the Gila River. The data suggests that archaeological sites in this area are numerous and varied, but most of all poorly-studied despite 100 years of research. A...

In 1978, the Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) directed the Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA) to complete an intensive archaeological survey of the proposed alignment for the Salt-Gila Aqueduct, a feature of the Central Arizona Project. The survey area was 11,115 acres and included the 60 mile-long transmission line (with a typical width of 200 meters), three proposed utility line locations, one flood retention dike location, 11 possible spoil or realignment areas, and a subsidence well....

The mortuary record of the Flagstaff region is best known for the burial of the Magician, who was accompanied by several discrete sets of ritual paraphernalia representing different ritual and political roles. The present project will compile a mortuary database for the Flagstaff region in conjunction with the creation of other regional databases using standardized variable states. These efforts will allow a greater contextual understanding of the Magician within his local...

Archaeological investigations sponsored by the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) were conducted by Soil Systems, Inc. (SSI) at several sites within the East Papago Freeway corridor, including El Caserío (AZ T:12:49(ASM)), La Lomita (AZ U:9:67(ASM)), and La Lomita Pequeña (AZ U:9:66(ASM)). During the investigation of these sites, a significant number of canal alignments were encountered, prompting the sponsoring of the East Papago Canal Study by ADOT. Canal System 2, traversed by the...

Studies of Hohokam irrigation systems undertaken in the past 5 to 10 years, particularly in the Phoenix Basin, have provided a wealth of new data to be studied and assimilated by archaeologists. Recently completed and ongoing projects have required archaeologists to ask new questions and to apply a variety of investigative techniques to better understand the complexities of Hohokam irrigation systems. It is important that archaeologists studying Hohokam irrigation systems evaluate the increasing...

Soil Systems, Inc. (SSI) of Phoenix, Arizona conducted a 16-month data recovery project at the large Hohokam village of Pueblo Grande. The site is located on the north bank of the Salt River in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. Approximately 20 to 25 percent of the site was excavated as the result of the expansion of the urban freeway system in Phoenix. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) sponsored the project. Pueblo Grande was one of the primary villages in the Phoenix Basin and is...

Soil Systems, Inc. (SSI) of Phoenix, Arizona conducted a 16-month data recovery project at the large Hohokam village of Pueblo Grande. The site is located on the north bank of the Salt River in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. Approximately 20 to 25 percent of the site was excavated as the result of the expansion of the urban freeway system in Phoenix. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) sponsored the project. Pueblo Grande was one of the primary villages in the Phoenix Basin and is...

Soil Systems, Inc. (SSI) of Phoenix, Arizona conducted a 16-month data recovery project at the large Hohokam village of Pueblo Grande. The site is located on the north bank of the Salt River in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. Approximately 20 to 25 percent of the site was excavated as the result of the expansion of the urban freeway system in Phoenix. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) sponsored the project. Pueblo Grande was one of the primary villages in the Phoenix Basin and is...

Soil Systems, Inc. (SSI) of Phoenix, Arizona conducted a 16-month data recovery project at the large Hohokam village of Pueblo Grande. The site is located on the north bank of the Salt River in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. Approximately 20 to 25 percent of the site was excavated as the result of the expansion of the urban freeway system in Phoenix. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) sponsored the project. Pueblo Grande was one of the primary villages in the Phoenix Basin and is...

Soil Systems, Inc. (SSI) of Phoenix, Arizona conducted a 16-month data recovery project at the large Hohokam village of Pueblo Grande. The site is located on the north bank of the Salt River in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. Approximately 20 to 25 percent of the site was excavated as the result of the expansion of the urban freeway system in Phoenix. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) sponsored the project. Pueblo Grande was one of the primary villages in the Phoenix Basin and is...

Soil Systems, Inc. (SSI) of Phoenix, Arizona conducted a 16-month data recovery project at the large Hohokam village of Pueblo Grande. The site is located on the north bank of the Salt River in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. Approximately 20 to 25 percent of the site was excavated as the result of the expansion of the urban freeway system in Phoenix. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) sponsored the project. Pueblo Grande was one of the primary villages in the Phoenix Basin and is...

Soil Systems, Inc. (SSI) of Phoenix, Arizona conducted a 16-month data recovery project at the large Hohokam village of Pueblo Grande. The site is located on the north bank of the Salt River in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. Approximately 20 to 25 percent of the site was excavated as the result of the expansion of the urban freeway system in Phoenix. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) sponsored the project. Pueblo Grande was one of the primary villages in the Phoenix Basin and is...

Soil Systems, Inc. (SSI) of Phoenix, Arizona conducted a 16-month data recovery project at the large Hohokam village of Pueblo Grande. The site is located on the north bank of the Salt River in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona. Approximately 20 to 25 percent of the site was excavated as the result of the expansion of the urban freeway system in Phoenix. The Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) sponsored the project. Pueblo Grande was one of the primary villages in the Phoenix Basin and is...

I present a preliminary regional database of mortuary practices for the Casas Grandes region of Chihuahua, Mexico. The reported prehistoric mortuary remains from the region are overwhelmingly drawn from the Paquime and Convento sites reported by Charles C. DiPeso and colleagues. Often overlooked, however, are several smaller samples that are reported with less detail. Given the complex nature of mortuary ritual from the region (especially in the late ceramic periods), the structure of the...

The study of Tucson’s prehistory has been pursued with an unprecedented intensity in recent years, and it seemed essential that the new results that were emerging be shared on a broader basis. This volume is the outcome of papers prepared for the Second Tucson Basin Conference in conjunction with the 1986 fall meeting of the Arizona Archaeological Council.

The document begins with an overview of the Legacies Project spring 2005 fieldwork. Subsequent chapters include: Agave Types and Distributions, Agricultural Impacts on Soil Compaction and and Settlement Size at Agua Fria National Monument, Legacy Effects on Herbaceous Plants on Agua Fria National Monument, Transect Survey Report at Richinbar, Architectural Studies at Richinbar Ruin, and an Agricultural Site Survey.

Archaeological pollen analysis applied to problems of antiquity estimation and paleoenvironmental reconstruction.

In 1985, the Bureau of Reclamation directed the Cultural Resource Management Division of the Arizona State Museum to develop a research design for data recovery at 15 selected archaeological sites along the Phase B alignment of the Tucson Aqueduct portion of the Central Arizona Project. Phase B included Reaches 4, 5, and 6 of the alignment. The sample included five Hohokam settlement sites: Fastimes (AZ AA:12:384 [ASM]), Waterworld (AZ AA:16:94[ASM]), AZ AA:16:97(ASM), AA:16:104(ASM), and...

This is the final report of the Vekol Hills Archeological Project. The project was done to lessen the impact of proposed open pit copper mining on archeological resources within an area of the Papago Indian Reservation, Pinal County, Arizona. Archeological resources comprise the remains of Reward Mine, another turn-of-the-century mining camp, and a Papago camp of the same period. A program of data recovery, including mapping, surface collection, and excavation, was undertaken during 1979 in...

A number of archeological surveys and excavations have been carried out within Saguaro National Monument near Tucson, Arizona, over the years, but the field work generally has been neither problem-oriented nor carried out in accordance with a suitable research design. Much of it, therefore, must be considered incomplete in terms of modern archeological theory and methods. Archeological activity both inside and outside the monument, however, has resulted in delineation of the cultural history for...

Under the sponsorship of the Bureau of Reclamation, the New Waddell Dam Borrow Areas Mitigative Data Recovery Project, more simply known as the Waddell Project, performed data recovery at 17 sites in the vicinity of Lake Pleasant, Arizona. Supplemental surveys conducted under the same contract added two sites to the inventory slated for investigation. The project area, composed of multiple survey areas, was spread across two drainages, the Agua Fria and New River, in what is considered the...

In this article, the authors seek to understand cosmological expressions in architecture and the built landscape in Mesoamerica, Northern Mexico, the US Southwest, and the US Southeast.

Of the many valleys in the southern desert of Arizona, the prehistoric Hohokam concentrated the largest and greatest of their communities in the Phoenix basin. It was here that they constructed the most elaborate and extensive of their canal networks. Their success drew on two unique characteristics of the basin environment. The first was the Salt River; the most competent and consistent source of water in the southern desert, it surpasses five-fold the volume and capacity of the Gila River to...

This volume presents the results of a set of diverse studies into special data sets from the site of La Ciudad. La Ciudad is one of the large Hohokam ruins within the network of prehistoric irrigation canals in the Phoenix basin (Figure A). It lies on the north side of the Salt River, midway along a canal system that originates at Pueblo Grande and extends a distance of seven miles to Las Colinas. La Ciudad is composed of multiple loci dispersed along the banks of four canals, and covers about...

This volume presents the results of a set of diverse studies into special data sets from the site of La Ciudad. La Ciudad is one of the large Hohokam ruins within the network of prehistoric irrigation canals in the Phoenix basin (Figure A). It lies on the north side of the Salt River, midway along a canal system that originates at Pueblo Grande and extends a distance of seven miles to Las Colinas. La Ciudad is composed of multiple loci dispersed along the banks of four canals, and covers...

Studies of the architecture of Pueblo La Plata, particularly room construction sequences, formed one component of the Legacies on the Landscape project research in 2004. The goals of this portion of the project were to improve our understanding of how the pueblo was built, and to gain a sense of population size and changes over time. In particular, we wished to determine whether a sizeable core area of rooms (representing the first construction phase of the pueblo) was visible, and whether the...

The last decade has seen a quantum leap in our understanding of the Hohokam. From those first days of defining the Hohokam as a cultural entity, great strides have been taken in describing their subsistence and settlement systems, explicating core-periphery relationships, and modeling the processes of Hohokam development, expansion, and decline. And yet, the old adage “the faster we go, the further behind we get” seems particularly descriptive of the current state of Hohokam archaeology. While...

The Hohokam community of Marana is a complex of residential neighborhoods, agricultural fields, and seasonal gathering stations dispersed over an area of about 20 square miles. The Marana community complex is an example of a settlement type common to the Classic period of the Hohokam. The diagnostic characteristic of these complexes is the association of platform mounds, walled compounds, and large residential neighborhoods in a dispersed pattern covering several square miles (such as is found...

Study of the archaeological record of 6 test pits to identify a recommended mitigation strategy for the site.

The large number of mortuary features identified in extensive excavations across the Phoenix Basin presents a unique opportunity and challenge for the creation of a regional data set. This paper presents a preliminary effort to construct a database of mortuary programs practiced at large Hohokam villages in the Salt River valley. It discusses the variables necessary to describe both Pre-Classic and Classic period mortuary remains documented at different settlements along...

Chapter 1 provides an introduction to the synthesis of the Lower Verde Archaeological Project. Whittlesey and Ciolek-Torello describe the project's environmental context, with a focus on the Verde River and its surrounding landscape. They also offer a brief introduction to the people who inhabited and used this landscape. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the research themes that guided archaeological data recovery and interpretation of the lower Verde River area.

In chapter 2, Whittlesey discusses some of the intellectual history of landscape theory and defines a landscape approach. She then considers the definition of archaeological landscapes. Finally, she discusses the utility of archaeological landscapes for interpreting both the prehistory and history of an area.

In Chapter 3, Whittlesey provides a description of the current state of the Verde River and discusses the history of intensive landscape modifications to the Verde and other rivers in central and southern Arizona (including the Salt, Gila, Colorado, Little Colorado, San Pedro, and Santa Cruz) . She first reviews archaeological and documentary evidence for changes to Arizona's riverine environments in both the prehistoric and historic periods. She focuses on accounts from the Spanish Colonial...

In Chapter 4, Whittlesey presents a thorough summary of archaeological research and intellectual history in central Arizona. The author's goal is to situate the LVAP research in the context of central Arizona archaeology. Whittlesey provides histories of the research that has been conducted in the Verde drainage, the Tonto Basin, the Agua Fria drainage, and the Phoenix Basin. She concludes with a summary of the research trajectories and the different explanatory models applied to central...

This chapter reviews archaeological evidence for Yavapai and Western Apache occupation of central Arizona. Whittlesey begins with a description of the only site – Site 66//1157 -- in the LVAP project area to present clearly identified Yavapai or Western Apache material culture. She also discusses the archaeological data from the Yavapai construction camps at Bartlett and Horseshoe Dams. Whittlesey then provides an overview of archaeological evidence for Yavapai and for Western Apache archaeology...

In Chapter 9, Van West and Altshcul examine late prehistoric period agriculture in the Transition Zone of central Arizona, and consider how agricultural production influenced population zone in this area. They begin with a description of the Transition Zone’s environmental context. They then present evidence for prehistoric agriculture in the LVAP project area. These authors use these data to model potential agricultural productivity in Horseshoe Basin. Next, they model the population sizes on...

Chapter 10 presents results from a ceramic seriation of undecorated pottery to identify temporally-sensitive attributes. Montogomery and Whittlesey describe their analysis of particular undecorated pottery attributes, which were selected based on their potential sensitivity to temporal change. They identify several attributes that are particularly sensitive to time: temper, slip, and polish. They also note several other variables that display slight variation through time. These authors propose...

In Chapter 11, Whittlesey describes the production and distribution of prehistoric ceramics in the lower Verde Valley. She then compares these patterns to similar data from the Agua Fria drainage and the Tonto Basin. Finally, she suggests that production and distribution patterns of ceramics in central Arizona may be better explained with a ceramic environment approach, which highlights the relationships between the landscape and the human use of resources. Whittlesey’s proposed approach centers...

In Chapter 12, Deaver summarizes research on the chronology of archaeological sites, features, and material remains in the LVAP project area. He begins with a synthetic discussion of the chronologic sequence in the Verde Valley area. He then presents data for the chronologic assignment of archaeological features and sites investigated during the LVAP. Next, Deaver discusses a comparison of the chronologic sequence in the Verde Valley to the sequence in the Hohokam core area in order to evaluate...

Chapter 13 addresses changes in social organization from the pre-Classic to Classic periods in the lower Verde Valley through an examination of changes in domestic space. First, Klucas and co-authors identify the nature (i.e., composition, arrangement, size) of the domestic residential units that occupied the prehistoric settlements. They then examine differences in these variables between different settlements (e.g., between large settlements and small farmsteads) and across time periods. These...

In Chapter 14, Ciolek-Torello presents one of the first full syntheses of indigenous settlement and demographic patterns in the Verde Valley, without reference to interaction in the Hohokam core area. He begins with a summary of prehistoric settlement patterns from pre-ceramic periods through the Late Classic period across the entire Transition Zone of central Arizona. He then characterizes settlement systems in the lower Verde Valley through time and describes the archaeological sites and...

In Chapter 15, Whittlesey reviews the Hohokam core-periphery model in light of the new data generated by the LVAP. She begins with a description of the intellectual history and the key concepts of the Hohokam core-periphery model and the Hohokam regional system model. She then examines the utility of the core-periphery model for explaining current data on Hohokam prehistory. After reviewing the distribution of several quintessential Hohokam traits among sites in the “core” and in the...

In Chapter 16, Reid considers the impact that a return to questions about migration, population movement, and ethnic identity has on the interpretation of Arizona’s prehistory. He begins with an intellectual history of migration research in the Southwest, and offers perspective on the strength of making inferences about migration with archaeological data. He uses the arguments for migration at Grasshopper as an example of building such inferences. Reid then advances into a discussion of...

Chapter 18 provides a summary of the LVAP’s research themes and offers an overview of the research results. Ciolek-Torello synthesizes the chronology and cultural sequence of the lower Verde Valley. He places this sequence and its cultural developments in the context of other cultural sequences in central and southern Arizona. Whittlesey then summarizes the argument for an indigenous cultural tradition in the Transition Zone of central Arizona, one with roots in Mogollon prehistory and with...

Chapter 19 summarizes and compares the prehistoric, historic-period Yavapai and Western Apaches, and Euroamerican landscapes. Whittlesey considers the land-based units (i.e., domestic space, food production spaces, ritual spaces) that define interaction with the landscape during each of these cultural historical periods and attempts to identify landmarks associated with these units. She focuses on the following units: territorial boundaries, agricultural landscapes, procurement spaces, dwelling...

Chapter 20 provides a brief retrospective of the LVAP. Altschul and the other authors discuss changes to the archaeological data recovery efforts and re-orientation of theoretical perspectives that took place over the six years of the project. They conclude with an overview of the project’s results and its implications for the prehistory and history of the Southwest.

Manual prepared as part of guide training for proposed equestrian heritage/ecotourism project exploring trails and archaeological sites in the Lower Verde Basin, Tonto National Forest, Arizona.

This is an image of a Morning Star headdress. Image courtesy of Tim Pauketat.

This is an image of a petroglyph depicting the Morning Star. Photo courtesy of Tim Pauketat.

Browning-to-Dinosaur project ceramics, includes features from the Siphon Draw site.