Where the Red-Winged Blackbirds Sing: The Akimel O’odham and Cycles of Agricultural Transformation in the Phoenix Basin

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Bess
Keyword(s):  
Agricultural Transformation ◽  
Phoenix Basin ◽  
Akimel O'odham ◽  
The Phoenix

Hohokam to Akimel O’Odham: Obsidian Acquisition at the Historic Period Sacate Site (GR-909), Gila River Indian Community, Arizona

2013 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 266-284 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris R. Loendorf ◽  
Craig M. Fertelmes ◽  
Barnaby V. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Temporal Trends ◽  
Cultural Patterns ◽  
Historic Period ◽  
South Central ◽  
Phoenix Basin ◽  
Long Term Trends ◽  
Akimel O'odham ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Phoenix

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.

ANCESTRAL O'ODHAM: AKIMEL O'ODHAM CULTURAL TRADITIONS AND THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD

2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Loendorf ◽  
Barnaby V. Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Cultural Variation ◽  
South Central ◽  
Phoenix Basin ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Akimel O'odham ◽  
The Phoenix

Archaeologists have long used the prehistoric inhabitants of the Phoenix Basin in south-central Arizona as an example of a failed or collapsed society, and most prehistorians still assert that Hohokam material culture patterns ended at the close of the Classic period (circa A.D. 1150–1450). Although researchers are increasingly recognizing connections between prehistoric and modern indigenous people, little consensus exists regarding the cause or causes of the dramatic alterations in material culture patterns that occurred in the region. Most archaeologists who have studied the changes at the end of the Classic period, however, have not fully considered the implications of previous and subsequent conditions, including similar and seemingly abrupt shifts in cultural practices that occurred both before and after this time. This paper uses Akimel O'Odham (i.e., Pima) cultural knowledge to contextualize the “Hohokam Collapse.” We show that this perspective of culture history explains the relationship between prehistoric and historic populations and answers many of the long-standing questions regarding cultural variation in the Phoenix Basin.

The Impact of Raw-Material Scarcity on Ground-Stone Manufacture and Use: An Example from the Phoenix Basin Hohokam

1994 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 680-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tammy Stone
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Current Model ◽  
Classic Period ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Ground Stone ◽  
Subsistence Economies ◽  
Phoenix Basin ◽  
Material Scarcity ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Phoenix

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.

Robustness, institutions, and large-scale change in social-ecological systems: the Hohokam of the Phoenix Basin

2006 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 133-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN M. ANDERIES
Keyword(s):  
Formal Model ◽  
Irrigation System ◽  
Ecological Systems ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Social Ecological Systems ◽  
Social Ecological ◽  
Term Change ◽  
Phoenix Basin ◽  
The Phoenix

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.

Classic Period Hohokam

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffery J. Clark ◽  
David Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Classic Period ◽  
The Other ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Population Densities ◽  
The North ◽  
Phoenix Basin ◽  
Populated Region ◽  
Lower Population ◽  
The Phoenix

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.

Exchange Network Topologies and Agent-Based Modeling: Economies of the Sedentary-Period Hohokam

2016 ◽  
Vol 81 (4) ◽  
pp. 623-644 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua Watts ◽  
Alanna Ossa
Keyword(s):  
Regional Scale ◽  
Simulated Data ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Exchange Networks ◽  
Agent Based ◽  
Phoenix Basin ◽  
Network Topologies ◽  
Nascent Markets ◽  
Exchange Network ◽  
The Phoenix

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.

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