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The Hohokam Canals at Pueblo Grande, Arizona*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Richard B. Woodbury
Richard B. Woodbury*
Affiliation:
University of Arizona, Tucson, Ariz.
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Abstract

A cross section of the surviving traces of two large prehistoric canals near Pueblo Grande, Phoenix, shows one to have originally been V-shaped in profile, about 6 m. wide and 4 m. deep, and the other U-shaped in profile, about 10 m. wide and 3 m. deep. Both were dug into coarse gravel and the broader (north) canal had been lined with brown clay subsequent to its construction and initial period of use. There is a possibility that the V-shaped South Canal was built first and perhaps abandoned when the North Canal was built. Both canals show evidence of repeated filling and clearing out, either by natural erosion due to a periodically swifter current or by the efforts of the Indians using the canals. Sherds under the banks and in the canals were too few for conclusive dating of construction and use, but suggest that this took place during the Soho phase of the Hohokam Classic period, that is, during the late 12th and the 13th centuries. Hohokam canals much older than this are known, and the occupation of nearby Pueblo Grande began earlier and lasted later than the Soho phase.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , October 1960 , pp. 267 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1960

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Footnotes

*

Contribution No. 32 from the University of Arizona Arid Lands Program, supported in part by the Rockefeller Foundation.

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