A Research Design for the Investigation of the Marana Community Complex

Summary

The Central Arizona Project (CAP) is a major undertaking by the Bureau of Reclamation to bring water from the Colorado River to central and southern Arizona. The aqueduct, which will help accomplish this feat, extends from the town of Parker, on the Colorado River to the west, across the western desert of Arizona to Phoenix. From the Phoenix metropolitan area the aqueduct turns south, crosses the Gila River in the vicinity of Florence and will terminate slightly to the south of Tucson. In addition to the aqueduct, a series of reservoirs will be built elsewhere within Arizona to help in the overall distribution and management of water. Such projects are planned for the Lake Pleasant area on the Agua Fria River, the Cliff area north of Lake Bartlett, Lake Roosevelt in the area of the Tonto Basin, and the Buttes area on the Gila River.

These elements of the CAP fall along an arc, extending eastwards from Lake Pleasant to Lake Roosevelt and then south towards the Tucson Basin. Cradled within the heart of this arc lie the Lower Salt and Gila basins, in which the Hohokam developed their most extensive irrigation and settlement systems and which, until recently, were the best studied portions of the Hohokam region. It is clear, given the magnitude of the effort which is involved in the CAP that this balance will shift (and perhaps already has) towards the periphery.

We propose to conduct research at a sample of 22 sites in the vicinity of the town of Marana. In one sense the Marana project is only one more in a series of CAP projects, involving less effort and probably less spectacular sites than other CAP archaeological studies. But in another sense, the research at the Marana Complex is the beginning of an opportunity to really understand the organization of Classic period communities. This opportunity, which may take ten years to fulfill, requires joining together pieces of a number of different complexes of sites and almost certainly will involve multiple researchers. But, it is an opportunity which cannot be missed, and which must begin with this project.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Salt River Project Digital Library   •
• National Archeological Database (NADB)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Salt River Project Cultural Resource Manager

Contributor(s): Glen E. Rice; T. Kathleen Henderson; Suzanne K. Fish

Prepared By(s): Office of Cultural Resource Management, Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University

Submitted To(s): U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Lower Colorado Region

Record Identifiers

Anthropological Field Studies No.(s): 10

NADB document id number(s): 2203663

SRP Library Barcode No.(s): 00030735

NADB citation id number(s): 000000167765

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