HOLOCENE ALLUVIAL FAN HISTORY AND ARCHAIC PERIOD OCCUPATION IN THE PHOENIX BASIN, ARIZONA

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Windingstad ◽  
◽  
John Hall ◽  
John Hall
1994 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 680-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammy Stone

Current models of ground-stone design, which relate tool morphology and size to subsistence economies, are based on assumptions of energy efficiency and processing constraints of the foodstuffs being ground. These models do not consider the impact of raw-material scarcity on ground-stone technologies. This impact is investigated here using an assemblage from the Classic-period Hohokam site of Pueblo Grande, Arizona. The current model of ground-stone design is modified to account for raw-material scarcity. Specifically, it is demonstrated that raw-material scarcity affects ground-stone manufacture, use, and discard patterns. It is argued here that studies using ground-stone assemblages to reconstruct subsistence economies must take these factors into consideration in areas where raw-material scarcity occurs.


2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN M. ANDERIES

Societies frequently generate public infrastructure and institutional arrangements in order to mediate short-term environmental fluctuations. However, the social and ecological consequences of activities dealing with short-term disturbances may increase the vulnerability of the system to infrequent events or to long-term change in patterns of short-term variability. Exploring this possibility requires the study of long-term, transformational change. The archaeological record provides many examples of long-term change, such as the Hohokam who occupied the Phoenix Basin for over a thousand years and developed a complex irrigation society. In the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, the Hohokam society experienced reductions in complexity and scale possibly associated with regional climatic events. We apply a framework designed to explore robustness in coupled social-ecological systems to the Hohokam Cultural Sequence. Based on this analysis, a stylized formal model is developed to explore the possibility that the success of the Hohokam irrigation system and associated social structure may have increased their vulnerability to rare climactic shocks.


Author(s):  
Jeffery J. Clark ◽  
David Abbott

This chapter discusses the Hohokam Classic Period (ca. 1200–1450 ce) in southern Arizona. Two perspectives are presented for observed archaeological patterns. One perspective is from the Phoenix Basin center, a densely populated region on a trajectory of overexploitation and decline throughout much of the interval, despite the construction of massive irrigation works and architectural buildings that left impressive ruins. The other perspective is from the outlying valleys to the north and east of Phoenix that had much lower population densities. Here intense interaction between local majorities, and small, but socially resilient, Kayenta immigrants from northeast Arizona led to the development of an inclusive Salado ideology that transcended the identities of both groups. This ideology ultimately penetrated the Phoenix Basin when the latter was on the verge of collapse. This collapse was so complete that few pre-contact archaeological sites have been identified in the Hohokam region after 1450 ce.


2013 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris R. Loendorf ◽  
Craig M. Fertelmes ◽  
Barnaby V. Lewis

AbstractObsidian provenance studies within the Phoenix Basin of south-central Arizona have become increasingly comprehensive during the last four decades. As a result, broad regional and temporal trends have been defined regarding Preclassic (ca. A.D. 650–1150) and Classic period (ca.A.D. 1150–1450) socioeconomic interactions in the Hohokam core area. However, Historic period patterns are still poorly understood, and these data are essential for understanding the relationship between the prehistoric Hohokam and historical Akimel O’Odham. The association between the Akimel O’Odham and Hohokam has been debated since Euro-Americans first visited the area in the late 1600s, yet this issue is still not fully resolved. This article presents analyses of historical obsidian from the Sacate site that suggest that long-term trends in cultural patterns within the Phoenix Basin continued unbroken into the Historic period. These continuities provide another line of evidence that the Akimel O’Odham are the direct cultural descendants of the Hohokam.


2016 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 623-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Watts ◽  
Alanna Ossa

The origins and evolution of market-based economies remain poorly understood in part because the data from nascent markets are scarce and methods available to archaeologists are underdeveloped. Studying how markets evolved is vital for understanding the origins of a process that dominates modern economies around the world and has significant policy implications. We show how refining abstract models of exchange networks with household-scale distributional analyses and regional-scale computational agent-based models (ABMs) can lead to new understandings about the organization of a prehistoric economy. The Sedentary-period Hohokam of central Arizona—particularly for the middle Sacaton phase (A.D. 1020–1100)—have been identified as a middle-range society that traded pottery in a market-based economy, but the structure of their exchange networks is not well understood. We analyzed ceramic data from recent archaeological excavations at two sites in the Phoenix Basin using new network-inspired distributional approaches to evaluate exchange systems. Initial results were then assessed using simulated data generated by an ABM of Hohokam exchange networks. Final results indicated that the best-fitting ABM model configurations were those consistent with openly accessed market-based exchange and contributed new insights into the influence of natural landscape barriers such as the Salt River on exchange in the Phoenix Basin.


2009 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 531-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Abbott

The ceramic evidence from 10 sites in the lower Salt River valley, Arizona, represents the entire temporal interval defined as the pre-Classic era of Hohokam prehistory. These data indicate that nearly all of the clay pots consumed in the valley over a period lasting six centuries were manufactured by just a few potter groups. The uninterrupted duration, high volume, and the large variety of vessel forms and wares produced for exchange may have been unparalleled in the prehistoric Southwest. A temporally comprehensive model of pottery manufacture in the Phoenix basin is presented, its implications for the origins of specialization, and the influence of intensive irrigation are discussed. In addition, the implications are considered for a previously published model of the Hohokam economy centered on marketplace transactions (Abbott, Smith, and Gallaga 2007).


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