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This report is about 58 archaeological sites located in and around an expansive desert basin known as the Santa Cruz Flats, located south of the Gila River. None of these sites are large. The biggest among them had only three, widely separated houses. Most of them had no houses, and the majority lacked material remains except for a mere scattering of artifacts now perched on the modern ground surface. Several of the sites included occupations dated to the modern, Historic, Euro-American era, while a few other sites produced chipped stone projectile points that likely date to the Archaic stage, the time of hunter-gatherers, before the advent of agriculture among the prehistoric peoples of the region. The most frequently represented material remains were those associated with the prehistoric Hohokam culture, the sedentary (at least semi-sedentary) agriculturalists who occupied the northern Sonoran Desert between A.D. 300 and 1450. The sites located within the construction corridor of the Santa Rosa Canal, a large water delivery system linked to the Central Arizona Project, are not quintessential Hohokam sites. The few Hohokam sites that contained preserved houses likely represent seasonal use only, and the vast majority of the sites include evidence of limited employment, probably for gathering wild crops; hunting; or tending, harvesting, and packing the yield away for storage and use elsewhere. Overall, these sites suggest rather heavy exploitation of resources formerly located on the Santa Cruz Flats, to a degree not previously appreciated, and at a time when it was supposed the Flats held less attraction. During the Hohokam pre-Classic period, there were few large communities outside the Tucson and Phoenix basins; the few settlements that were located in the intervening range were tightly restricted, by all outward appearances, to the bajadas of the surrounding mountains (Wilcox 1988a).

This report describes the results of archaeological investigations undertaken northeast and in the vicinity of the Tator Hills at the southern edge of the Santa Cruz Flats. The archaeological investigations were funded by the Bureau of Reclamation, Arizona Projects Office, and identified as Tasks 43 and 45 of Contract 3-PA-30-00740. The work was conducted to mitigate the impact to prehistoric resources in the construction of the Central Arizona Irrigation and Drainage District, Central Unit IV irrigation system. Three sites, two Archaic campsites (AZ AA:6:18[ASM]) and AZ AA:6:19[ASM]) and one Hohokam resource procurement locus (AZ AA:6:17[ASM]), were investigated. The primary goal of the study was to describe and elucidate the Archaic occupation of the Santa Cruz Flats. AZ AA:6: 17(ASM) was utilized by the Hohokam as an intermittent gathering and processing camp. The presence of a redware vessel in addition to plainware ceramics suggests that the site dates during the Sedentary or Classic periods. The occurrence of fire-affected rock and ground stone artifacts indicates that food processing and preparation were the primary functions of the site. Characteristics of the ground stone assemblage are reflective of a small-seed economy suggesting that native plants were the principal resources exploited at the site. AZ AA:6: I8(ASM), named the Tator Hills site, is considered to be a campsite that was intermittently occupied from the Middle Archaic to the Protohistoric or Historic period (ca. 2500 B.C.-A.D. 1800). Sixty-nine cultural features were documented at the site, including thermal pits, fire-affected rock concentrations, aboriginal surfaces, and a structure. The exposure of a Late Archaic activity surface, with accompanying thermal pits, ground stone artifacts, and a brush shelter, provides new insights about the composition of Archaic seasonal campsites. Later Ceramic period manifestations were primarily superficial in character, and appeared focused on the exploitation of plant resources along the drainages that crossed the site. In all likelihood, the site was occupied by small, mobile bands throughout time, who utilized the area as part of a seasonal round, most likely in response to resource availability. AZ AA:6: 19(ASM), named Coffee Camp, represents a significant site on the Santa Cruz Flats. Excavations at the site revealed stratified cultural deposits which extended from the Late Archaic to the Protohistoric period and indicated that the site was repeatedly occupied for more than 2,500 years. The major occupation occurred during the terminal Late Archaic (ca. 2200 to 1900 B.P.). Represented among the 369 cultural features documented at the site were habitation structures, both inhumation and cremation burials, and various types of cooking, storage, and processing pits. Artifacts from the site included chipped stone, ground stone, ceramics, and shell. Some of the ground and chipped stone artifacts were recovered from caches, and the ceramic artifacts represent some of the earliest securely dated materials of their type in the Southwest. The features and artifacts documented at the site, such as the presence of early ceramics, cremations with grave offerings, architectural variety, and a large, possibly communal structure, indicate that radical changes were occurring in Late Archaic culture. Primary among these was the emergence of a bi-seasonal settlement-subsistence system that entailed a primary, intensive focus on the abundant floral resources of the floodplain/riverine environment with secondary support derived from short-term exploitative activities in lower/upper bajada locations. This economic organization, as well as items of material culture, may be considered precursors to subsequent Hohokam manifestations in the deserts of southern Arizona.

This document contains the specialized analyses and syntheses of archaeological data recovered during the excavation of sites on the Santa Cruz Flats. The investigations were sponsored by the Bureau of Reclamation in order to mitigate the impact to prehistoric resources in the construction of the Central Arizona Irrigation and Drainage District, Central Unit II and III irrigation systems. These systems are located southwest of Interstate 10, south and west of Eloy, Arizona, south and east of Arizona City, Arizona, and north of Friendly Comers, Arizona. The 13 sites included three villages, one farmstead, and nine resource procurement loci; most of these were occupied during the late Sedentary or Classic periods. The primary goal of the study was to describe and elucidate the Classic period occupation of the Santa Cruz Flats. Evidence presented here indicates that there was a change in the structure and distribution of settlement between the late pre-Classic and Classic periods on the Santa Cruz Flats. The contrasts in settlement structure suggest that this change involved the transition from economically autonomous village communities to a centrally coordinated platform mound complex. A change in subsistence patterns may also be indicated. The locations of pre-Classic communities suggest that there was greater diversification of subsistence options, with procurement of resources across a wide range of rnicroenvironments. During the Classic period, this diversification was supplanted by an intense focus on agriculture. Although it is clear that wild or gathered resources continued to supplement the diet, these may have been obtained in part through exchange networks established with other mound communities located to exploit the same set of resources as in the pre-Classic period.

Shelltown (AZ AA: 1:66[ASM]) and the Hind site (AZ AA: 1:62[ASM]) were small, surprisingly uncommon prehistoric settlements inhabited by members of the Hohokam culture in south-central Arizona between the early 8th and late 10th centuries A.D. Although they seem relatively large now – the Hind site is approximately 20 acres and Shelltown is a protean 178 acres – neither site appears to have been occupied by more than a couple of extended families at any one point in time. However, at Shelltown, in the late decades, there may have been a more concentrated grouping, perhaps approaching the character of a true village of small stature. During most of these site’s occupational histories, their population probably consisted of no more than a couple of nuclear families. It is even more likely that many of the occupations represented a single nuclear family, apparently all on an intermittent basis. There is not much evidence to suggest permanent residence at these sites, although opinions differ on among the research team members. The material record at each of the sites indicates that they were likely seasonal encampments. At The Hind site, occupation occurred from about A.D. 700 to A.D. 800, and again sometime in the middle A.D. 800s. At Shelltown, use of the site spans the early to late middle A.D. 800s, and A.D. 925- 1025. Shelltown and the Hind site are not unique, however, in their magnitude, organization, or antiquity. Similarly-sized and arrayed sites are exceedingly common in the Hohokam culture area, although known sites of any type dating to the 8th and 9th centuries are less numerous than sites inhabited after A.D. 900. What makes these two sites rare is what happened at them apart from the normal routine of subsistence activities and other everyday actions. These sites were inhabited by specialized craftsmen --jewelry and ornament makers –perhaps at a scale seen nowhere else in the American Southwest. Their output was astonishing in its variety: bracelets, pendants, effigy figures, beads, and rings made from as many as 36 separate species of marine shell obtained from the waters or beaches of the Gulf of California or, in lesser degree, the Pacific Ocean; mosaic inlays and pendants of turquoise, muscovite, pyrite, copper ores, and galena; pendants and beads ground from schist and slate, or simply adapted from a quartz crystal. This document is Volume 1, Part 1 of the report. Please see https://core.tdar.org/document/378269 for Volume 1, Part 2.

This volume contains descriptive data for the major Hohokam, protohistoric, and historic sites investigated during the Ak Chin Farms Data Recovery project. It contains six chapters. It includes a chronological review of settlement patterns for the Ak-Chin area, in-depth reports on sites Va-Pak (AZ T:16:85 [ASM]), Beeth Ha-ha-a (AZ T:16:83n5 [ASM]), Watch Frog (AZ T:16:16 [ASM]), and Whimsy Flat (AZ T:16:71 [ASM]), as well as an examination of the historic period sites in the projket area. The volume concludes with two appendices: one containing the archaeomagnetic dates and one containing the radiocarbon dates from all sites investigated.

This volume contains subsistence information derived from the Ak.-Chin Archaeological Project sites, and a synthesis and interpretation of the various data. It is divided into two sections: Subsistence Studies and Synthesis. Four chapters provide the results of macrobotanical studies, pollen analysis, faunal analysis, and a synthesis of the subsistence studies. The Synthesis section includes two chapters. The first is an examination of the protohistoric Ak-Chin people; the second chapter places the project results in perspective and evaluates these results against the original questions posed in the project research design.

This volume presents the artifactual and osteological remains recovered from the project area. This volume comprises five chapters, including analyses of shell artifacts, prehistoric and protohistoric ceramic artifacts, worked ceramic artifacts, chipped and ground stone, and an examination and interpretation of the human osteological material and mortuary practices.

This is the fourth volume in the Tucson Aqueduct Project, Phase A series reporting on archaeological investigations at over 50 primarily Hohokam sites in south-central Arizona. Each chapter in this volume incorporates the research focus, methodology and results of the analysis of one of the artifactual or material sets resulting from these investigations. The general ceramic analysis, conducted on over 159,000 sherds, provided the basic descriptive and comparative data and allowed us to ceramically seriate a large proportion of the sites and features. The undecorated ceramics were sorted into four varieties, three of which were found to be technologically distinct and temporally diagnostic. An intensive attribute analysis was then conducted on a reduced sample of sherds. Evidence from refiring experiments, recovered clays, unfired vessels and ceramic tool kits, and data gained from the petrographic analysis of 40 samples (Appendix A) indicate that much of the undecorated ceramics and some of the buffwares were locally produced. The ground and flaked stone artifacts are described and evaluated in Chapters ·2 and 3, respectively. The ground stone inventory was found to contain food processing tools similar to other peripheral sites. Differences were documented between the Brady Wash and Picacho localities, including the intensity of agave exploitation. Intriguing differences were noted in the flaked stone material procurement strategies between the Brady Wash and Picacho localities. An x-ray fluorescence analysis of a sample of recovered obsidian (Appendix B) resulted in the identification of seven distinct sources. Chapters 4 and 5 detail the results of the analyses of the project's shell and worked bone assemblages. Neither of these resources were heavily exploited by the Hohokam living in the project area.

This volume documents the excavation and testing by the Museum of Northern Arizona of 92 structures, a platform mound, and numerous other features at 15 loci of the Brady Wash site and six small sites in Reach 1 of the Tucson Aqueduct Project, Phase A. These sites are a major segment of the Brady Wash Complex, a Hohokam community that inhabited the floodplain below the northwest slopes of the Picacho Mountains.These investigations provide detailed insight into long-term Hohokam adaptation to a marginal, non-riverine environment.In contrast to the large, riverine Hohokam communities, the Brady Wash community was a much simpler society employing a highly mixed subsistence strategy, equally dependent upon floodwater farming and wild plant gathering. The exploitation and possible cultivation of agave played a particularly important role in this adaptation. The community began in the early Colonial period as a series of small farmsteads along Brady Wash, with field houses and resource procurement and processing sites scattered over a broad area of the floodplain. By the Civano phase, these farmsteads became aggregated into hamlets clustered around a platform mound. The greatest degree of aggregation occurred in the late Civano phase, a time that witnessed the breakdown of riverine Hohokam communities. The Classic period hamlets at Brady Wash retained the earlier and simpler organization of small courtyard groups rather than the large compound groups typical of Classic period riverine sites. The plat form mound at Locus S of the Brady Wash complex is the smallest known example of this architectural type. Although surrounded by other structures and by a compound wall, there was no evidence of habitation at the mound itself. Instead, the platform mound served as a communal food storage and processing area, particularly for agave. The Brady Wash complex was integrated into the Hohokam regional system, but by its simpler organization and mixed subsistence base, the Brady Wash community was apparently able to maintain its stability for 600-700 years, until the call apse of the general Hohokam system ca. A.D. 1450.

This second part of the second volume in the Tucson Aqueduct Phase A, Hohokam Archaeological Sites, Data Recovery Project series, presents the basic descriptive data for archaeological investigations of prehistoric sites in the Brady Wash area in Reach 1 of the Tucson Aqueduct. A series of archaeological excavations and supplemental surveys were carried out between December 1983 and January 1985 under the direction of staff personnel from the Museum of Northern Arizona (MNA) under Contract No.3-CS-30-00790 for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, Department of the Interior. The project encompasses a roughly linear transect between 0.4 and 1 km wide by 50.5 km long running the length of Reaches 1 and 2 of Phase A of the Tucson Aqueduct. Thirty-three single-component or primarily Hohokam sites formed the initial basis of our data recovery and research program. Supplemental surveys and data recovery added several sites to this total. A large number of Archaic, quarry and petroglyph sites of unknown affiliation, and sites with minor Hohokam components were also documented by ASM in the project area. These, however, were awarded under separate contract to other institutions. The Hohokam sites were divided by ASM into two groups - the Brady Wash and Picacho complexes -which were believed to represent Classic period Hohokam communities, each centered around a platform mound. The Brady Wash complex serves as the focal point of the MNA data recovery and research program in Reach 1.

During 1986 and 1987 archaeologists from the Cultural Resource Management Division, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, excavated a Rillito phase Hohokam settlement that lay in the right-of-way for the Tucson Aqueduct Phase B, Central Arizona Project. Known as Water World (AZ AA:l6:94 ASM), the site is located at the southern end of the Avra Valley on the distal end of a lower bajada of the Tucson Mountains. One hundred and forty-seven features were identified by backhoe trenching and surface stripping, including 45 structures. Fifty-nine features were investigated: 21 structures, a ballcourt, 14 pits or hearths, 21 cremations, a midden deposit, and potbreak. The features were divided into seven house groups, a ballcourt area, and a possible central plaza. The artifactual, nonartifactual, and site structure data suggest that Water World was a formalized ballcourt village that was probably occupied permanently for a relatively short period of time during the Rillito phase (A.D. 700 to 900) of the Colonial period. It is also possible that the site's population increased during the winter months, when residents subsisted on stored food supplies. Water World is located in a nonriverine environment where floodwater farming potential should have been very good. There are, however, tentative hints that agriculture may not have been as intensively practiced as expected. Furthermore, the apparent paucity of the ritual and ceremonial objects that were also expected at a ballcourt site brings into question how the site may have functioned in local Hohokam economic organization.

In 1986 archaeologists from the Cultural Resource Management Division of the Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, excavated a Rillito phase Hohokam settlement that lay in the path of the Tucson Aqueduct Phase B, Central Arizona Project. The site, AZ AA:12:384, nicknamed "Fastimes," was located northwest of Tucson at the northern end of the Avra Valley, some 6,7 km southwest of the Santa Cruz River. Trenching and stripping revealed 96 features, including at least 30 pit houses. Thirty-eight features were excavated or tested: 17 pit houses, 6 cremations, 2 inhumations, 8 roasting pits, and 5 other pit features. The features were distributed among five distinct house groups, some which had one or more house clusters. The total site area was 164,300 square meters. The variety of artifactual and nonartifactual materials analyzed indicates that Fastimes probably represents five farmsteads, all occupied during the relatively unstudied Rillito phase (A.D. 700 to 900) of the Colonial period, Some of the structures were occupied year-round, but site use may have lasted only a generation or two. Exact contemporaneity of the house groups could not be determined, but in some cases the general building sequences within groups could tentatively be reconstructed. Fastimes represents intensive use of nonriverine resources by the Hohokam and provides new insights into their occupation of the Avra Valley during the Colonial period. The occupants took advantage of ideal floodwater farming conditions at the distal end of the bajada where the site was situated; they grew corn and probably squash and cotton. Hohokam families harvested an abundant variety of wild plant foods. They also hunted, mainly jackrabbit, although mule deer, pronghorn antelope, and kit fox also were taken for food and skins.

This is the sixth and final volume in the series presenting the results of archaeological investigations of Hohokam sites along Reaches 1 and 2 of the Tucson Aqueduct, Phase A, Project. The project involved the investigation of two prehistoric platform mound communities in the Picacho Mountains area, which prior to these investigations were virtually unknown. The project focused on the Brady Wash community with lesser efforts in the Picacho community. The research efforts represented by the project documented the existence of an atypical Hohokam culture exploiting an arid and marginal environment where traditional Hohokam irrigation practices were not possible and a greater dependence on the gathering of wild plants was necessary for existence. Despite the markedly different subsistence strategies of the Hohokam populations of the Picacho Mountains area, they were clearly well integrated in the Classic period Hohokam regional system and were able to survive in this inhospitable environment longer than in other areas more amenable to large-scale sedentary settlement. In fact, settlement of the Picacho Mountains area may have persisted for some time after the collapse of the regional system. This volume recounts the research and management histories of the project and summarizes and synthesizes specific research topics documented separately in previous volumes. The results of all the archaeological research efforts are placed in perspective in the concluding chapters and the major research questions originally presented in the research design (Volume 1) are addressed along with those that emerged in the course of the project.

Volume 4 of the Tucson Aqueducet Phase B project, the fourth in a series of five reports, describes the results of the investigations at all archaeological sites other than the two large Rillito phase settlements Water World and Fastimes. It reports the results of excavations at 11 sites: four limited activity sites (AZ AA:12:383, AA:l2:465, AA:l2:481, and AA:l2:484, better known as Hawk's Nest); two farmstead-field house sites (AZ AA:l6:97 and AA:l6:161); a probable protohistoric site (AZ AA:ll:26); and four lithic quarry sites (AZ AA:l6:95, AA:l6:96, AA:l6:157, and AA:16:175). Reports on the Phase B archaeomagnetic dating, the turquoise sourcing analysis, and supplemental survey also are included in this volume. Volume 4 is divided into five parts. Part 1 consists of the first 10 chapters and discusses the results of the investigations at Hawk's Nest (AZ AA:l2:484). Part 2 is devoted to the excavation of AZ AA:l6:161 and includes Chapters 11 through 14. Sites AZ AA:ll:26, AA:l2:383, AA:l2:465, AA:l2:481, and AA:l6:97 are described in Part 3 (Chapters 15 through 19, respectively). Four lithic quarry sites (AZ AA:l6:95, AA:l6:96, AA:16:157, and AA:l6:175) are the focus of Part 4 (Chapter 20). Part 5 consists of Chapters 21, 22, and 23; each discusses a different specialized study that was part of the Phase B project: archaeomagnetic dating, turquoise sourcing analysis, and the supplemental Phase B survey, respectively.

This is the fifth volume in a six volume series presenting the results of archaeological studies at Hohokam sites along the Tucson Aqueduct.The volume focuses on pollen, flotation and faunal studies in an effort to understand the paleonenvironment of the study area during the periods the sites were occupied and the subsistence strategies of the sites' occupants. Primary site-specific emphasis is on determining feature functions as they relate to biological results. The studies presented document considerable variation in Hohokam subsistence patterns within a relatively small region. While the occupants of the Brady Wash area sites relied on corn and agave, the Hohokam in the Picacho area sites relied primarily on Cheno-ams, mesquite, agave and hunted wild animals. The summary statements on paleoenvironment and subsistence deal with methodological problems in an effort to suggest improvements in specialist studies in Hohokam archaeology.

The third volume in the Tucson Aqueduct, Hohokam Studies Project presents the results of field investigations of sites in Reach 2 of the Tucson Aqueduct, Phase A project area. These investigations were directed towards both intensive and low level testing of a wide variety of sites in the area south of the Picacho Mountains and north of Red Rock, Arizona. Also reported are the results of on-call surveys of several areas outside of the aqueduct right-of-way. Investigations focused on portions of a large early Classic period village with a small Colonial period component, the McClellan Wash site, and a large Colonial period hamlet, the Picacho Pass site. Investigations were also carried out at the Rock Terrace site, a large dry-farming site used for the exploitation of Agave and wild plants; the Lizard Man Site, a specialized resource procurement and processing site with numerous bedrock mortars and metates; the Pecan Site, a small Colonial and early Classic period farmstead; and the Red Rock Reservoir, a pre-Classic period reservoir and resource procurement site. Small scale tests were conducted at a number of other small to moderate sized resource procurement and processing sites. These investigations revealed that the earliest occupation of the area was in the Archaic or late Pioneer period and the first evidence of major settlement was in the early Colonial period. There was a major reduction in occupation during the Sedentary period. New and larger settlements were founded in the early Classic period. Settlement peaked in the late Classic period when a large community was formed around a plat form mound northeast of the study area. Significant and early historic Piman remains were also documented at several sites. The Hohokam adaptation to this area was similar to that postulated for the Desert Branch of the Hohokam, with subsistence dependent on Chenoams, Agave, and wild plant foods. Little evidence of traditional corn agriculture was present until the early Classic period and even then it was very limited. Throughout the prehistoric occupation, the settlements appeared to be on the frontier between the Gila-Salt and Tucson basin core areas, exhibiting material culture traits from both areas. However, nonlocal resources and products were rare, indicating relatively little participation in regional interaction networks.