Hohokam

The Hohokam culture was a Pre-Columbian Native American culture in the Southwest of the United States today. In the language of Hohokam Pima mean about those who have disappeared, been used literally about, no longer usable. As an archaeological term for said culture the term of Harold S. Gladwin was introduced, which began in 1927 with the exploration of their relics.

The culture existed from about 300 to 1500 AD in central and southern Arizona, with a focus on the confluence of the Gila and Salt River around present-day Phoenix, Arizona. The famous remains of settlements of the Hohokam are the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument and the same as the reported Hohokam Pima National Monument Snaketown, a prehistoric settlement, which today is in the Gila River Reservation, and is not open to the public. Other finds are known from the Chaco Culture National Historical Park.

Characteristics and lifestyle

Archaeological Hohekam the culture was defined by characteristic ceramic finds at their first intensive exploration in the 1920s. They are characterized by multiple repetitions of small pattern in red on yellow, gray or brown clay.

The settlements consisted of a core of densely together standing buildings and scattered houses in the periphery. The center grouped around large plazas or mound with a platform on the top. The buildings consisted of pit houses with walls of wattle and clay plaster, from about 1150 also walls of adobe mud bricks came on.

The courts are traditionally identified with fields for the Mesoamerican ball game, but suggested that it is dance floors, from which existed until the 20th century traditions of Vikita festival of Papago emerged 2009. The curved side lines and the low limits, and other features make the places of the Hohokam for the ball game unsuitable, but correspond to the shapes of the Papago.

Until about 1300, the cremation was the only burial form in the late phase of corpses were buried directly.

Food and agriculture were influenced by the climatic conditions in the lowland desert. The annual rainfall is 180 mm. The year-round availability of drinking water was not backed up. The most elaborate feature of the Hohokam culture had a sophisticated irrigation system that extends over 1200 km stretched and an area of ​​over ten thousand hectares irrigated.

For the Cave Creek, a tributary of the Salt River, it is proved that the Hohokam diverting the whole bed of the river in its plane artificially to increase the proportion of clay in the soil, which promoted the fertility for several years. After soil analysis they were able to value of 18 percent ground share in the typical soils of the region to increase to around 45 percent, thus increasing the water retention capacity of the soil significantly.

On the terrace-like fields but the Hohokam built to mainly maize, beans and pumpkins next to it also as well as cotton. Chance also amaranth and barley were detected. They used hoes and exclusively grave sticks tipped with bone or stone that were attached to it for the field crops. In addition to agriculture was also the gathering of wild fruits, especially mesquite and prickly pear cacti.

Due to the strong similarity of all finds in the entire settlement area can be considered close contacts between all members of the Hohokam culture. Kinship relations, the development of climatically adapted forms of economy and speculation about shared religious beliefs are called as methods of cultural homogeneity.

Compounds and Trade

Presumably, the culture of the Hohokam was strongly influenced by Central America. Both the mound with platforms such as the ball game point to close links Mesoamerica.

From the Mexican coasts members of the Hohokam culture obtained large quantities of mussel shells that were made ​​into jewelry. Relationships also existed in the Rocky Mountains, was traded from where obsidian. Soapstone and other rare rocks were obtained from the East.

End of the culture

From the twelfth century, the decline of the Hohokam culture began. First ensured droughts for famine, in the following century, a large part of the irrigation system was destroyed by floods, causing the Hohokam lost their food security. Along with the arrival of new tribes from the north and disturbed trade relations with Mexico, the Hohokam were finally forced to a lower level of culture. Presumably the members of the tribe of Pima are the last descendants of the Hohokam.