Exploring the Pre-Classic Roots of Hohokam Platform Mounds: New Evidence from La Plaza

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.

Recent archaeological and historical investigations at the Hohokam site of La Plaza revealed robust evidence that a platform mound once stood in the north part of Arizona State University’s Tempe campus. Recently obtained archaeological evidence suggests that the mound was built during the middle-late Sedentary period (ca. A.D. 1020–1125/1150) using Sedentary period canons of mound form and composition, as evidenced by its oval or subrectangular shape in plan, small size, and absence of adobe walls and interior rubble fill. Analyses of the fill contents and arrangement of multiple puddling pits and a large borrow pit associated with the mound provide insights into labor effort associated with the mound’s construction and maintenance. Notable also is the presence of Classic period (post- A.D. 1125/1150) features beneath the outer edges of the inferred mound footprint, which implies that the mound was expanded during the Classic period but that Sedentary period canons of mound form and construction were maintained. In this presentation, we discuss the broader implications of our findings concerning the organization of public space in La Plaza and, more broadly, the mobilization of labor for communal construction projects in Hohokam society.

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): 24185