Hohokam - Major Villages Within The Hohokam Core Area

Major Villages Within The Hohokam Core Area

Further information: List of dwellings of Pueblo peoples

The true measure of the Hohokam can only be derived from the sum of their material culture. This is best gleaned from a review of their principal population centers, or more appropriately, major villages. Although sharing a common cultural expression, each of these major villages has its own unique history of emergence, growth, and eventual abandonment. Including outlines of archaeological exploration; provided below are brief descriptions of the largest and most important prehistoric villages found within the so-called Hohokam Core area.

• Snaketown

Snaketown was the archetypical Preclassic Period settlement and preeminent community centered within the core of the Hohokam culture area. Today Snaketown is situated within the Hohokam Pima National Monument, located near Santan, Arizona, which was authorized by Congress on October 21, 1972. Excavations conducted in the 1930s and again in the 1960s revealed that the site was inhabited from about 300 BC to AD 1050. At its height in the early 11th century, Snaketown was the center of both the Hohokam culture and the production of the distinctive Hohokam Buff Ware. Following the last excavations conducted by Emil Haury, the site was completely recovered with earth, leaving nothing visible above ground.

Overall, Snaketown boasted two ball courts, numerous trash mounds, a small ceremonial mound, a large central plaza, several large community houses, hundreds of residential pithouses, and may have been home to at least several thousand people. After Snaketown was abandoned, several minor settlements were founded within the general vicinity and continued to be occupied until the early 14th century AD. The Hohokam Pima National Monument is located on Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) land and is under tribal ownership. It covers nearly 1,700 acres (688 ha) (6.9 km²). The GRIC has decided not to open this extremely sensitive prehistoric site to the public.

• Grewe-Casa Grande

Altogether, the greater Grewe-Casa Grande Site represented the largest Hohokam community located within the middle Gila River valley. Situated between two primary canals (on the north, Canal Casa Grande and to the south Canal Coolidge), over time this community was recorded as several separate archaeological sites. These include the Casa Grande, Grewe, Vahki Inn Village, and Horvath sites. Occupied in the Preclassic and Classic periods, each of these sites was composed of between two and 20 large residential areas. Overall, the greater Grewe-Casa Grande Archaeological Site covered approximately 900 acres (3.6 km2), centered on State Route 87 and immediately north of the modern city of Coolidge, Arizona.

Most observers are attracted to the four-story Great House found near the center of the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. Akimel O'odham oral tradition records that prior to the arrival of the Sto'am O'odham, or 'Coyote People,' this massive structure was built by an important personage called Sial Teu-utak Sivan, (Morning-Green Leader) or 'Chief Turquoise.' In the O'odham language, the Great House and the associated prehistoric ruins found north of Coolidge were collectively referred to as Sivan Vah'Ki, literally meaning the 'Abandoned House,' or 'Village of the Ruler,' respectively. As Frank Russell recorded in the early twentieth century, several O'odham oral traditions note that Sial Teu-utak was an important leader of the Casa Grande community, before the overthrow of the Suwu'Ki O'odham, or 'Vulture People.' Eusebio Francesco Chini (Father Kino) arrived in the middle Gila River valley in 1694 to find the monumental Great House abandoned and already in a state of decay and decomposition. Despite its condition, he and later Jesuit missionaries, used the Great House to hold Mass, between the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Adolph Bandelier provided one of the first detailed archaeological maps and descriptions of Classic Period architecture at the central locus, or Compound A, of the Casa Grande Site, in 1884. Jesse Walter Fewkes and Cosmos Mindeleff made further descriptions of this area. Between 1906 and 1912, Fewkes conduced excavations and stabilization of this portion of the site. In 1927 Harold Gladwin excavated stratified tests of several trash mounds at both the Grewe and Casa Grande sites. He also defined and excavated portions of Sacaton 9:6 (GP), an adobe-walled compound situated on the extreme edge of the Casa Grande Site, east of State Route 87, near the current entrance to the Monument. Relatively large-scale excavations were carried out between 1930 and 1931, by Van Bergen-Los Angeles Museum Expedition under the direction of Arthur Woodward and Irwin Hayden. This project concentrated on a 30-acre (120,000 m2) parcel at the Grewe Site, and Compound F located within the northeast corner of the Casa Grande National Monument. Overall, including the recovery of 172 burials and hundreds of thousands of artifacts; about 60 pithouses, numerous pits, 27 adobe pitrooms, and a ballcourt were excavated or tested during the course of this project.

Additional excavations were performed in the southeast corner of the Monument by the Civil Works Administration directed by Russell Hastings in 1933 and 1934. The excavation of 15 pithouses, 3 pits, 32 burials, and portions of four trash mounds demonstrated the presence of significantly large late Preclassic and early Classic period components within the area covered by the Monument. Yet, by far the largest and most comprehensive archaeological endeavor was conducted by Northland Research Inc., from 1995 to 1997, on a 13-acre (53,000 m2) parcel within portions of the Casa Grande, Grewe, and Horvath sites that paralleled State Route 87 and 287. This project was directed by Douglass Craig and resulted in the identification and/or excavation of 247 pithouses, 24 pitrooms, 866 pits, 11 canal alignments, a ballcourt, and portions of four adobe-walled compounds; as well as the recovery of 158 burials and over 400,000 artifacts.

Based on the results of these projects, the history of the greater Grewe-Casa Grande Site can be reconstructed with at least some degree of precision. The genesis of this important village appears to have been associated with several groups of pithouses organized around a series of relatively small circular plazas. These appear to date to the 6th century AD and were located along and immediately upslope of the Coolidge Canal system. By the 8th century AD, this dispersed hamlet had expanded nearly a kilometer south and developed into a full-fledged village. At this point the settlement consisted of densely packed yet discrete groups of pithouses clustered around small open courtyards. In turn these structures delineated a large central plaza. Adjoining the plaza was a medium-sized ballcourt, and overall the village was affiliated with several smaller outlying settlements.

In the 10th century, at least two large secondary villages and about a dozen new hamlets were founded to the west of the main settlement. With the abandonment of Snaketown and the transition from the Preclassic to Classic periods, the greater Grewe-Casa Grande community became one of the largest and most important Hohokam population centers. At its height, the Grewe-Casa Grande village boosted about 100 trash mounds, several hundred residential pithouses, and four or five ballcourts. Regardless of its size, complexity, and significance along the middle Gila River, this settlement never seemed to have attained the status enjoyed by Snaketown, as it pertained to the Hohokam Culture, per se. As the western portion of this settlement grew, large sections of the eastern half declined and were abandoned. By the AD 1300, the village was composed of about 19 adobe-walled residential compounds, several pitroom clusters, a platform mound, a great house, and numerous trash mounds. With most of the village contained within what is now the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, after the middle of the 14th century it began a rapid decline. Around AD 1400 or 1450 the entire settlement was abandoned, except for a low-scale occupation associated with the Polvoron Phase.

Today, about 60 percent of the Grewe-Casa Grande Site has been either destroyed due to agricultural and commercial development, excavated, or remains relatively intact buried under fields used to grow cotton. Approximately 40 percent of this once huge settlement can be found within the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, which was established as the nation's first archeological reserve in 1892, and declared a National Monument in 1918. Visitors can enjoy an interpretative center, walk among the stabilized ruins of Compound A, and closely view the Great House, which has been protected since 1932 from the elements by a distinctively modern-looking roof.

• Pueblo Grande

Pueblo Grande Museum Archeological Park near central Phoenix contains preserved ruins and artifact exhibits. Archaeological finds have been recorded along the track of the adjacent Valley Metro light-rail construction.

• Mesa Grande

The Mesa Grande Ruin, located in Mesa, Arizona, represents another large Hohokam village that was occupied both in the Preclassic and Classic periods, from approximately AD 200 to 1450. Although this settlement appears to have been very important, it has had little archaeological work, other than the mapping and stabilization projects conducted by the Southwest Archaeology Team (SWAT). The SWAT's indispensable volunteer work at the Mesa Grande Ruin began in the middle 1990s and continues today.

At its peak in the late Preclassic and early Classic periods, this settlement may have consisted of as many as twenty discrete residential areas and covered several 100 acres (400,000 m2). Today, due to massive urban development, the surface remains of the village have been reduced to a small parcel situated immediately west of the Mesa Hospital. Within this plot are the ruins of a large adobe compound and a nine-meter high, relatively intact platform mound. This is only one of the last three remaining Hohokam platform mounds in the greater Phoenix metro area. This parcel was transferred into public ownership in the mid-1980s, therefore the compound and mound were not destroyed, yet the city of Mesa has yet to fund any property upgrades, with the exception of a new fence. As of August 2007, this important prehistoric ruin remained on the Arizona Preservation Foundation's list of Most Endangered Historic Places due to benign neglect.

• Las Colinas

• Los Hornos

Located within the modern city of Tempe, Arizona, the Hohokam settlement of Los Hornos (from the Spanish los hornos, meaning 'the ovens') was initially investigated by Frank Cushing in 1887. With urban expansion, additional excavations were conducted in the 1970s, late 1980s, and throughout the 1990s. The results of these comprehensive archaeological projects have documented both a large Preclassic and Classic-period village organized much the same as Snaketown and Pueblo Grande, respectively, yet on a somewhat smaller scale. Los Hornos appears to have started around AD 400, as a small cluster of rectangular pithouses situated on the extreme western edge of the site, west of Priest Dr and south of US 60.

Over time the Los Hornos settlement expanded along a series of large secondary canals to the east and southeast. At the height of the Preclassic occupation in the Sacaton Phase, which was contemporary with the zenith of Snaketown, this settlement had one large ball court, a large central plaza, several formal cremation cemeteries, numerous trash mounds, and several hundred residential pithouses. The detailed excavation of 50 Preclassic Period pithouses in the area located immediately south of US 60 and east of Priest Dr, provided invaluable information concerning residential architecture and the functional use of interior space. Additional information concerning the Archaeological Consulting Services Ltd. excavation of a Preclassic occupation at Los Hornos can be found at the following site.

After a short period of population loss and community reorganization in the late 11th and early 12th centuries AD, Los Hornos continued to shift east and south in the Classic Period. This large village appears to have recovered somewhat and again became an important settlement late in the Soho or early in the Civano phase, from AD 1277 to 1325. At this time Los Hornos, now centered on Hardy Dr south of US 60 and north of Baseline Road, consisted of about 15 residential compounds, a large central plaza, a large rectangular platform mound with an associated compound, several large trash mounds, as well as numerous borrow pits and inhumation and cremation cemeteries.

Prior to the middle of the 14th century AD, with the rise of Los Muertos located several miles to the south and east, the Los Hornos community appears to have spiraled into a precipitous decline. Although greatly reduced in scale and importance, the settlement continued to be occupied until it was effectively abandoned between AD 1400 and 1450, as was much of the Lower Salt River basin. Today much of the Los Hornos village has been destroyed due to modern transportation, residential, and commercial development, or has been excavated. The only surface vestiges of this once significant Hohokam settlement are the remains of several low trash mounds found in the Old Guadalupe Village Cemetery.

• Los Muertos