A Monument of Memories: The Pueblo Grande Platform Mound

Summary

This is an abstract from the "WHY PLATFORM MOUNDS? PART 1: MOUND DEVELOPMENT AND CASE STUDIES" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Located at the head of a large canal system in Phoenix, the Pueblo Grande platform mound is one of the largest structures ever built by the Hohokam. This building is nearly 4 m in height, 4,000 m2 in area, and incorporates 16,000 cubic m of rock, trash, soil, and structural remains in its cell-like design. Although built in stages, this platform mound was clearly a massive undertaking that had social and ritual importance, possibly representing a symbolic mountain. We argue that the mound was used as a center for food storage, feasting, and ceremonial activities relating to rain and agricultural fertility and was central to the social and ritual functioning of the village and related agricultural territories. It was built to emphasize the importance of land ownership and honor the memories of the ancestors who settled that location several centuries before the mound was constructed. This paper will discuss ethnographic information about the role of platform mounds and describe the special artifacts and architecture that suggest the Pueblo Grande platform mound had a ceremonial function, and then place the platform mound within a regional context during a time of increasing competition for fertile farmland and irrigation water.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• WHY PLATFORM MOUNDS? PART 1: MOUND DEVELOPMENT AND CASE STUDIES   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23979