Prehistoric Hohokam Gridded Fields in the Lower Salt River Valley

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeologists working in west Phoenix discovered a complex of prehistoric Hohokam agricultural features consisting of a lateral canal and associated turnouts, sluice gates, field canals, and agricultural field cells in the southeastern portion of AZ T:12:206(ASM) (Site 206). The field cells appear to have dated mainly to the Sacaton phase (AD 950–1150). These are some of the only Hohokam fields ever discovered. A “perfect storm” of preservation had taken place in which flood deposits from the Salt River capped a portion of the field cells and thereby protected and preserved them, burying them deeply enough to avoid the rippers and plows of modern agriculture. This is much like the conditions that led to the preservation of pre-Hohokam, Early Agricultural period (1200 BC–AD 50) fields along the Santa Cruz River in the Tucson Basin. Our focus in this study is on determining how the irrigation system operated and what had been grown in the field cells. The discovery of fields at Site 206 has given archaeologists a glimpse into Hohokam farming practices along the lower Salt River and shown many centuries of continuity in prehistoric farming practices in southern Arizona.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38093.0