Chasing Canals in the West Valley, Phoenix, Arizona

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeologists from WestLand Resources discovered portions of several prehistoric and historical canals while conducting data recovery for a proposed freeway in west Phoenix. Excavations were conducted both within the freeway corridor and in adjacent parcels. Researchers utilized a combination of methods to track the canals through the project areas including: 1) historical canal maps, 2) aerial photographs, 3) Google Earth imagery, 4) drone imagery, 5) backhoe trenches, and 6) horizontal excavation with heavy equipment. Horizontal excavation (stripping) with a backhoe proved insufficient for the removal of the many cubic meters of soil overlying the canals. Instead, the use of a large excavator (track hoe) allowed exposure of hundreds of meters of canals and associated features in plan. One large named canal, Canal Rio, was tracked for several kilometers across multiple project areas.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52919