Documenting Ancient Hohokam Irrigation Systems along the Middle Gila River and the Social Organization of Irrigation

Summary

The Gila River Indian Community’s Cultural Resource Management Program has conducted a long-term study of canal irrigation along the middle Gila River in south-central Arizona. The work has been conducted in conjunction with the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project with funding by the United States Bureau of Reclamation. These efforts have provided a wealth of information on prehistoric Hohokam canal systems, which were used between A.D. 450 and 1450. Principal contributions of these studies are a greatly clarified map of the canal systems, a major increase in the number of excavated canal segments, and a new understanding of the layout, size, and capacity of the canal systems and their development through time. Soil studies of irrigated fields within these systems, along with experiments in traditional crop production, have greatly augmented our knowledge of Hohokam irrigated agriculture. Other studies have focused on the social organization of irrigation management and canal labor. This paper gives an overview of the major highlights of these studies on canal irrigation.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Tribal Heritage Management Programs in Action at the Gila River Indian Community, Arizona   •
• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage