Hohokam Indians inhabit marshes (Las Lagunas) near Nogales. Papago tribes (Pima and Tohono O'odham) are likely their descendents. Hohokam Indians dwell across southcentral Arizona. The result is a diverse mix of fantastic histories, military conflicts, religions, industries, and storied places along southern Arizona's border with Mexico. Swedish pioneers settled in former Apache homelands, while a Greek merchant became mayor of Nogales, and the Mormon Battalion patrolled the West. Chinese workers built railroads Eastern Europeans worked in mines African-American "Buffalo Soldiers" manned military posts and Mexican ranchers lost their lands in the tides of political change. Spaniards and Africans appeared in the region nearly 500 years ago, followed by Anglo, Asian and Jewish pioneers during the past two centuries. The Hohokam and Mogollon cultures gave way to the modern nations, Yaqui, Pima, and O'odham, as well as Apaches who migrated to the region more than 500 years ago. According to Gregory Schaaf, the director of the Center for Indigenous Arts and Culture, in his book Ancient Ancestors of the Southwest: “Pima oral history tradition describes how elite Hohokam leaders became oppressive and locals drove them back to the south, as part of a liberation movement.The Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora border region has been the site of extensive diverse cultural activity over the past two millennia. This may be due to a combination of environmental factors (including the build-up of salt in the soil from irrigation) and civil warfare. Now, perhaps, the close spiritual relationships were between a few individuals with unusual powers and the water deities of the supernatural realm.”Īfter 1400, many of the Hohokam towns were abandoned. Brian Fagan writes: “It was as if a few members of society elevated themselves in both material and spiritual terms above everyone else, whereas in earlier times the relationship between the living and the ancestors, with the underworld where humans originated, had been more important. While the ball courts were built into the ground, the platform mounds seem to reach for the sky. The shift from ball courts to platform mounds suggests that there was a change in religion, in the nature of the Hohokam’s relationships with the supernatural. The platform mounds seem to be associated with elite activities. The construction of the platform mounds seems to suggest a change from a relatively egalitarian society to a more stratified society, a society in which an elite group was setting itself apart from other people. Archaeologist Brian Fagan, in his book Elixer: A History of Water and Humankind, writes: “It is as if Hohokam society became more hierarchical, with only a few individuals having access to the precincts within the enclosures.” This seems to suggest a major change in Hohokam social organization. While the ball courts of the early period were open and seemed to encourage spectators, the platform mounds have limited access. On top of the mounds there were as many as 30 rooms. The mounds were often built within an adobe compound and some of them are over 3.5 meters (12 feet) high. ![]() Most of the platform mounds-more than 120 have been identified-were constructed in the Phoenix Basin. Some archaeologists have calculated that construction of the larger mounds may have required 50,000 person-hours. The construction of these mounds required community labor on a massive scale. During this time, the platform mounds would be composed of thousands of cubic feet of fill. These platform mounds took on greater importance and between 12 they grew dramatically in size. Sometime after 1100 CE, the Hohokam ball courts seemed to be less important and the people began constructing platform mounds.
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