20 July 2021
===========================================================================
RELATED CONTENT ON THIS BLOG:
Quite fortunately, we do have maps of The Salt River Valley that clearly mark the locations and sites of earlier pueblos, plazas, canals, casas and casitas, las acequias(swamps), and reservoirs and even more temples - one of which is in an area called 'Pueblo Moroni' .
- Any element below grade required archaeology to be performed.
- The design was reviewed by tribal leaders and the State Historic Preservation Office.
photo: Brad Goldberg 
_________________________________________________________________________
This Saturday is the Seasonal Re-Opening for "A Hidden Gem " in Central Mesa - most people don't realize this cultural park even exists, even though its long history goes back centuries before the mid-1850's when Mormon Pioneers from Utah were sent on a mission in oxen-carts to colonize Arizona for The Church. There were two waves, the first in an area now named "Lehi" after a Prophet in The Book of Mormon. 
> Between the 7th and 14th centuries they built and maintained these extensive irrigation networks along the lower Salt and middle Gila rivers that rivaled the complexity of those used in the ancient Near East, Egypt, and China. These were constructed using relatively simple excavation tools, without the benefit of advanced engineering technologies.Note how the 4-Corner States divided up the land
____________________________________________________________________________
1 
Just like a recent image shown on this blog from a press release about a "Trees For The Dead" - "Shade-and-Shelter" campaign at the Mesa City Cemetery, this site in Nogales at Kino Springs certainly looks serene.
Other than that, adjacent to the city cemetery here in Mesa is the Mesa Country Club where some people play golf. Both are on high ground close to ancient Hohokam canals in the Salt River Valley. Kino Springs, in the Santa Cruz River Valley, has an long documented history of early settlements.
Here in Mesa - and in Tempe and Phoenix and Scottsdale - there's documentation as well for what Frank Midvale called "The Pre-Historic Irrigation of the Salt River Valley" of earlier indigenous cultures that were established for centuries before anyone recorded their versions of that history when evidence of those who were here before was "discovered" and their settlements patterns were mapped.
< Here's a closer look from a Digital Geo Map 2003 uploaded by Richard A. Neely.
Major Hohokam Irrigation Systems in the Lower Salt River Valley
The link is below if you're interested in more details.
But let's note at this point, that it was the usual practice to bury the dead on higher ground above the irrigation canals close to settlements and housing patterns.
Finding artifacts or human remains is often the result of chance - or new construction.
Research Gate
___________________________________________________________________________
2 
Hohokam Human Remains Found in Arizona
_________________________________________________________________________________
That's the way it happened in Kino Springs on 29 Sept 2019 -
< The remains were found at the Kino Springs Golf Course, which lies near the Santa Cruz River east of Nogales.
(Google Map from report on Nogales International)
Ancient human remains found at golf course
A maintenance crew working at the Kino Springs Golf Course this week discovered human remains that authorities say date to prehistoric times.
The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office received a call shortly before 11 a.m. on Tuesday from someone who said they were working on installing water pipes and came across what they believed were human remains.
Sgt. Santiago Gonzales said Sheriff’s Office personnel proceeded to take photos of the remains, and the images were then sent to the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner for review.
“They were able to determine that the remains were prehistoric, so at this point the case is going to be referred to the Arizona Historical Museum,” Gonzales said.
The golf course is set along the north-flowing Santa Cruz River, and according to the article “Archaeological discoveries reveal value of Santa Cruz River in prehistory,” posted to the website of the University of Arizona Water Resources Research Center, the Santa Cruz River Valley is one of North America’s longest inhabited regions, with the earliest evidence of human occupation dating back 12,000 years.
“Around 4,000 prehistoric sites have been identified in the Santa Cruz watershed and exciting new discoveries continue to be made,” the article saysSource: Nogales International
21 July 2019
3 
It's been estimated in this book The Hohokam Chronicles that the last Hohokam period ended some 600 years ago in the 1400's. Some of what we know is written by a white archeologist Julian Hayden from text given in this book. It is a full, traditional Pima Indian creation narrative composed of thirty-six distinct stories that begin with the creation of the universe and end with the establishment of present-day villages. Versions of most of these stories have been published before, sometimes in isolation and sometimes as parts of larger texts. This text, in addition to having an interesting version of nearly every known Pima story, is the most complete natively-articulated set of such stories to be written to date - 1994.
 |
| Map 2. Hohokam canals in the Salt River Valley. Granite Reef Dam is in the extreme northeast corner. (Drawn by Frank Midvale, a Phoenix archaeologist) |
According to the book, "The text was given because Hayden was interested in what the Pimas knew about the culture that he and his colleagues were investigating, a culture whose archaeological name, the Hohokam, was borrowed from Pima mythology."
What culture was Julian Hayden interested in? The so-called 'pre-historic' culture that is an amazing in-the-ground testimony of man-made engineering skills to build irrigation canals here in The Salt Valley.
____________________________________________________________________________
Reference: University of California Press
____________________________________________________________________________
The word means "Finished-ones" in Pima, but it was not clear to archaeologists or to white students of modern Pima culture exactly how this old culture had ended and what its relation was to the Pimas who had lived on former Hohokam territory since they were discovered and named "Pima" by the Spaniards around 1550.
It was hoped that the Smith-Allison text, taken down at a village built on a Hohokam site, would be of assistance.
< see this accompanying map for geographic place names
BLOGGER NOTE: A substantial part of Southeast Arizona was named by The Spanish "Pimeria Alta". There is more documentation and written history on that area than what is available [or known] here in The Salt River Valley. Areas of Marana, just north of Tucson and areas in Patagonia, just 18 miles north of the transnational border with Mexico, have been studied more extensively than what we know.
4 NOTE THE PLACE NAMES AND LOCATION SITES
No comments:
Post a Comment