Casa Grande Ruins National Monument
Casa Grande Ruins National Monument is a memorial of the type of National Monuments in Arizona - about 80 kilometers south of Phoenix. It houses the remains of a formed approximately in 1200 settlement of the people of the Hohokam. Namesake and center of the area is Casa Grande (Spanish for Big House ) - the largest known building from the era of the Hohokam, which should be clear, however, came later.
History
From about the year 300, the people of the Hohokam had evolved from nomadic hunters and gatherers that settled in the river valleys of the Gila River and the Salt River and first permanent settlements docked. The Hohokam agriculture began to operate, and laid in the vicinity of the rivers to irrigation canals. Away from the rivers of rainwater was collected and directed into the fields or dig for ground water for irrigation.
At the same time there is also a brisk trade between the peoples of the Southwest began to develop. Settlements were now also on trading routes that extended already at that time to present-day California, the Great Plains, the Colorado Plateau, and to enter into what is now Mexico. From the middle of the 12th century put a structural change in the culture of the Hohokam. People left the small, scattered villages and concentrated in larger, usually located along rivers settlements, including Casa Grande is counted.
Little is known about the end of the culture of the Hohokam. When the Spanish missionary Padre Eusebio Kino passed in 1694 in the hamlet of Casa Grande, he found them already left. Members of the Pima people he encountered in the area, told him that the settlement was once inhabited by their ancestors, which they call Ho -ho And arrived. Ho -ho- And arrived in the language of the Pima " all gone ".
The ruins of Casa Grande
Today's National Monument consists of a whole set of ruins that are surrounded by a rectangular wall. Casa Grande is by far the largest and best preserved building of the park. With some exceptions exist, the remaining ruins of the park from hip to head - high wall remains.
All of the historic buildings in Casa Grande Ruins National Monument are built of a material called Caliche. It is a unique, concrete -like mixture of sand, clay and limestone, which was developed and perfected by the Hohokam. The ingredients were blended to caliche mud and deposited layer by layer on the planned walls. Ceiling elements made from fir, pine and juniper wood, which for this purpose about 60 miles (100 km ) upriver were cut down on the Gila River and transported down the river to the settlement.
The Casa Grande
Casa Grande was named by early Spanish explorers, for which the size of the building was unbelievable. This is now always specified as Four - Story Structure (building with four floors) with a side length of 60 feet (about 18.3 meters ). The completion of the building is estimated at the period around the year 1350.
Special attention deserves the building because of several structural features, suggesting excellent astronomical knowledge of the Hohokam. Thus the walls of the square building are precisely aligned to the cardinal directions. A circular hole in the upper part of the western wall leaves at the time of the sunset on the summer solstice, the light incident on a certain spot. Several other openings in the walls are aligned with other special positions of the sun and moon. This astronomical knowledge were used, among other things, to determine the best time for sowing, harvesting and religious festivals.
The National Monument
To protect Casa Grande as a unique historical monument and preserve the Casa Grande Ruin Reservation was established on 22 June 1892 by President Benjamin Harrison. Casa Grande and the surrounding building area of about 194 hectares were thus the first prehistoric and cultural site in the United States.
On August 3, 1918, the territory of President Woodrow Wilson declared a National Monument. From the year 1930, the facility was finally at the behest of the U.S. Congress Casa Grande Ruins National Monument. In 1926, the area was reduced to the current dimensions of approximately 191 hectares. Today, Casa Grande is under the management of the National Park Service.
The distinctive superstructure that protects up today Casa Grande from the weather, from the year 1932, based on designs by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., son of the renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, among other things, for the design of Central Park in New York was responsible.
The visitor center also artifacts of the Hohokam culture are exhibited, which were found in the nearby Hohokam Pima National Monument. This is on private property and is not accessible to the public.