Deciphering the Dairy Site: Settlement Dynamics and Early Hohokam Developments

Summary

The Dairy site is a long-lived prehistoric locality situated at the juncture of the Tortolita Mountains piedmont and the Santa Cruz River floodplain north of Tucson, Arizona. Although the site has yielded important evidence of early Hohokam settlement and cultural developments, the sporadic nature of investigations, the lack of data from early fieldwork, and the destruction of significant portions of the site by the original Shamrock Dairy operation provide substantial challenges to understanding the occupational history and structure of this important prehistoric locality. Since 1999, archaeologists with Tierra Right of Way have investigated much of the locality and revealed extensive loci dating from the Tortolita through early Hohokam (Snaketown and Cañada del Oro) phases. This paper synthesizes previous and on-going research at the site to address the emergence of a local Hohokam tradition in this unique locality. We contrast early Hohokam cultural developments at the Dairy site with the plaza-centric village-based developments identified elsewhere by highlighting alternate agricultural strategies, settlement dynamics, and ideological and mortuary patterns.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21732