Click here to view some of the jewelry and pottery recovered from Casa Grande. Snaketown and Casa Grande, as well as other southwestern sites, probably represent the development of chiefdoms by 1000 AD or earlier, and artifacts found at these sites indicate extended trade networks with shells from the Gulf of California, and parrot bones and feathers as well as copper bells from southern Mexico. Snaketown excavation in 1964 (backhoe at lower left is moving backdirt piles, not excavating!) From: Lost Civilizations: Mound Builders & Cliff Dwellers, Time-Life Books, 1992, p.94 Here citizens probably gathered to see games played with a small rubber ball the object of the game was to get the rubber ball through a small ring on high on the side of the court (perhaps without using hands and feet to do so.) This game, as we will see in the next unit, is characteristic of many Mexican and MesoAmerican agrarian states. Over 200 ball courts have been found at Hohokam sites, rectangular, partially sunken courts some 180 feet long and 65 feet wide. Snaketown contained two ball courts, a large central plaza, and small ceremonial structures. These large towns once housed several thousand people each, and showed considerable influence from southern Mexico. Major sites include Casa Grande and Snaketown in Arizona (see pp 300-305 in text for more on Snaketown). Though influenced by the development of agrarian states in southern Mexico, for the most part Hohokam appears to have been an indigenous development from foragers who had occupied the area since 9,000 BC. The introduction of new bean species, plus squash and cotton by 300 AD led to a continual increase in population. Hohokam ( ca.1 AD -1450 AD)įarming started in the Hohokam area as early as 1 AD, with small groups of farmers raising maize and beans. ![]() In this brief survey of these three cultural areas, pay particular attention to their art and architecture, best done by clicking on all links, required or not, and looking at any pictures. The map below shows the general extent of the three major groups.Īnasazi (Ancestral Pueblo), Mogollon, and Hohokam (Map from Wikipedia Commons) To what extent there was political unity within any of the cultural areas is difficult to say. There were many archaeological sites within each cultural area, and widespread trade. More or less contemporary, each name represents a slightly different geographical areas, and somewhat different common elements of culture. Today archaeologist's have divided these horticulturalists into three (sometimes four) groups, Hohokam, Mogollon, and Anasazi or Ancestral Pueblo. ![]() It is at best a marginal area for agriculture without irrigation, but when domesticated maize and eventually squash and beans were introduced from central and southern Mexico, the result was the development of vigorous tribes and chiefdoms. Rainfall is sporadic, rivers often intermittent, and soils thin. ![]() Northern Mexico and the southwestern United States are today mostly an arid or semi-arid environment, with an annual rainfall of less than 10 inches in the drier parts of New Mexico and Arizona. 258-59 in text), it was the introduced domesticates from the south which fully established horticultural tribes and ultimately chiefdoms across the southwest and eastern U.S. While a secondary domestication center almost certainly developed in what is now the eastern United States, with the domestication of sunflower, a species of squash, goosefoot and marshelder (see p. The three domesticated crops of maize, beans, and squash, established by 3000 BC in southern Mexico, spread northward relatively quickly.
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