While I had a captive audience I planned a field trip. Uncle Christian and Aunt Amy are in southern Utah for the weekend and I got to take care of the kids! We went to to visit a site I had read about earlier. I had driven over to see it but then decided I wasn't comfortable going exploring by myself. It is the Pueblo Grande Ruins and Archeological Park. It is actually in Phoenix not far from the Sky Harbor Airport. I'm not sure how much the grandkids enjoyed it but I really enjoyed see the displays and walking around some of the archeological digs that had been preserved. I looked up information on Wikipedia and found the following.
Long before Euroamericans moved into the area that is now Phoenix, it was home to a thriving civilization called Huhugam by the culturally affiliated O’odham and the Hohokam by archaeologists. These Ancestral Native Americans created the archaeological structures preserved at Pueblo Grande.
Pueblo Grande features a large platform mound with retaining walls. This massive structure contains over 20,000 cubic meters (yards) of fill. There were also many dwellings, and at least three ball courts.
The Hohokam archaeological culture developed some of the largest and most advanced canal systems in all of pre-Columbian North America. They were the first people to practice irrigated agriculture in the region. The remnants of their irrigation canals are part of the archaeological site at Pueblo Grande.
Pueblo Grande was occupied from approximately AD 450 to 1450, at which time it was abandoned like many other villages throughout the Phoenix basin. The reasons why these ancestral Native Americans left their villages and irrigation systems are widely debated among archaeologists. There are many competing hypotheses that include floods, droughts, warfare, and disease.
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| Since Meg will be working on a "dig" this summer I took this picture to show what she may be doing! |
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