What crops did the Hohokam manage to grow?
Corn (maize), beans and squash were the three major crops in the prehistoric American Southwest and were also the principle foods of the Hohokam. But the Hohokam also used other Mesoamerican food plants such as agave and amaranth.
How did the Hohokam survive in a desert environment?
The Hohokam Indians lived for hundreds of years in the Sonoran Desert along the rivers of southern Arizona. They were farmers who built irrigation canals and used water from the rivers to grow crops. In addition to the crops they grew, they used many desert plants for food, clothing, shelter, and other objects.
Why was farming difficult for the Hohokam?
The sudden disappearance of the Hohokam between 1400 and 1450 CE is a puzzle. Archaeologists speculate that maintenance of the canals was difficult and sediment accumulated over the centuries. Farmers were forced to abandon old canals and move further from the river, increasing the technological challenge to farming.
How did the Hohokam grow their crops?
The Hohokam grew their crops with the use of irrigation canals. They dug miles of canals in both the Salt and Gila River valleys using only stone tools, digging sticks, and baskets. With water from the rivers, they were able to grow corn, beans, squash, and cotton in the desert.
What objects did the Hohokam make for wealth?
The people are called artisans and would have worked full time to provide these special objects for their community or to trade. One important craft made by the Hohokam was shell jewelry. They made bracelets, rings, and necklaces out of shell brought from Mexico.
What technology did the Hohokam use to farm in the hot dry Southwest?
For their time, the Hohokam were the only culture in North America that relied on irrigation canals to water their crops. The Hohokam lived in the dry desert, which means there was not enough rainfall alone to grow crops. In order to meet their needs, they created highly sophisticated and large irrigation systems.
Why did Hohokam disappear?
The Hohokam people abandoned most of their settlements during the period between 1350 and 1450. It is thought that the Great Drought (1276–99), combined with a subsequent period of sparse and unpredictable rainfall that persisted until approximately 1450, contributed to this process.
How did the Hohokam adapt to their environment to be able to farm?
How did the Hohokam farm in the desert? built shallow canals for irrigation, they planted crops in series of earthen mounds and used woven mats created dams in the canals that directed irrigation water toward the earthen crop mounds. They expanded their irrigation system to channel water into their villages.
What were the Hohokam known for?
The Hohokam are probably most famous for their creation of extensive irrigation canals along the Salt and Gila rivers. In fact, the Hohokam had the largest and most complex irrigation systems of any culture in the New World north of Peru.
Did the Hohokam have a written language?
But the Hohokam had no written language. If they had a system of numbers, they left no record of it.
What were the Hohokam houses called?
pithouses
There are two types of Hohokam houses, pithouses and adobe houses. A pithouse is a house built into the ground. They dug a shallow hole 3 feet deep and then built the wall of the house. The walls and roof were made of vertical beams.
What happened to the Anasazi?
The Anasazi lived here for more than 1,000 years. Then, within a single generation, they were gone. Between 1275 and 1300 A.D., they stopped building entirely, and the land was left empty. When rainfall was reliable and water tables were up, the Anasazi built their roads and monuments.
What language did the Hohokam people speak?
Tepiman
Comparative language studies suggest that many of the Hohokam people spoke a variety of ancient Tepiman, but certain odd words used by the historical Akimel O’odham and Tohono O’odham are more closely related to the Zuni In- dian language of western New Mexi- co than to the main Tepiman lang- uage, suggesting that most …
Do the Anasazi still exist?
The Anasazi, Saitta said, live today as the Rio Grande Pueblo, Hopi and Zuni Indians. There is a growing belief that the Anasazi were not simple and communal, and that dealing with climate was not their biggest worry.
How did the Anasazi die?
Drought, or climate change, is the most commonly believed cause of the Anasazi collapse. Indeed, the Anasazi Great Drought of 1275 to 1300 is commonly cited as the last straw that broke the back of Anasazi farmers, leading to the abandonment of the Four Corners.
Where did Hohokam go?
The Hohokam peoples occupied a wide area of south-central Arizona from roughly Flagstaff south to the Mexican border. They are thought to have originally migrated north out of Mexico around 300 BC to become the most skillful irrigation farmers the Southwest ever knew.
Why is Anasazi offensive?
But more than that, the word is a veiled insult. For a long time, it was romantically — and incorrectly — thought to mean “Old Ones.” It actually means “Enemy Ancestors,” a term full of political innuendo and slippery history.
Why did the Anasazi die?
Is Anasazi a bad word?
What is wrong with “Anasazi”? For starters, it is a Navajo word unrelated to any of the Pueblo peoples who are modern-day descendants of the Anasazi. But more than that, the word is a veiled insult. Some have suggested using the Hopi word Hisatsinom, a term referring to ancestors.
Are the Anasazi still alive?
One important craft made by the Hohokam was shell jewelry. They made bracelets, rings, and necklaces out of shell brought from Mexico.
The Anasazi lived here for more than 1,000 years. Then, within a single generation, they were gone. Between 1275 and 1300 A.D., they stopped building entirely, and the land was left empty.
What did the Hohokam houses look like?
Adobe houses were square instead of oval and built above ground. The roof was made of wooden beams covered in a layer of grass and branches and then adobe. The roof on an adobe house was flat and would have been used like an extra room. Both types of houses had a firepit for heat and light.
How did the Hohokam people survive in the desert?
Hohokam farmers truly had mastered the desert, in the sense that they were able to successfully grow crops in the same locations for hundreds of years and create a large, well-organized, prospering society. Why this once-flourishing cultural pattern came to an end remains a mystery.
What was the Hohokam culture most famous for?
Hohokam Culture. The Hohokam are probably most famous for their creation of extensive irrigation canals along the Salt and Gila rivers. In fact, the Hohokam had the largest and most complex irrigation systems of any culture in the New World north of Peru. Not even the complex societies in Mesoamerica had such extensive irrigation canals.
Why was the Hohokam irrigation system so important?
To meet their needs, the Hohokam engineered the largest and most sophisticated irrigation system in the Americas. The canals were perfectly laid out on the landscape to achieve a downhill drop (or gradient) of 1 to 2 feet per mile.
What kind of houses did the Hohokam Indians build?
Later, the low circular mounds were replaced by much larger, rectangular “platform mounds” of earth, rock, and adobe covered with structures and courtyards built on top. Hohokam villages are remarkable in the ancient Southwest for their stability.
Hohokam farmers truly had mastered the desert, in the sense that they were able to successfully grow crops in the same locations for hundreds of years and create a large, well-organized, prospering society. Why this once-flourishing cultural pattern came to an end remains a mystery.
What kind of crops did the Hohokam Indians grow?
According to George J. Gumerman and Emil W. Haury in their article, “Prehistory: Hohokam,” in the Handbook of North American Indians: Southwest, the early Hohokam excavated long and complex canal systems to irrigate their fields of corn, beans, squash and other crops. They dug wells to tap underground water sources.
Where can you find the Hohokam Desert in Arizona?
The pattern of use seen at sites in and around the Tucson Mountains can be found throughout the Hohokam region, from Phoenix to Green Valley and from Sells and Gila Bend to the San Pedro River. Because of the geological and biological diversity of the Sonoran Desert there are, of course, variations in the pattern.
To meet their needs, the Hohokam engineered the largest and most sophisticated irrigation system in the Americas. The canals were perfectly laid out on the landscape to achieve a downhill drop (or gradient) of 1 to 2 feet per mile.
