Life in Hohokam Courtyards

Life in Hohokam Courtyards ILLUSTRATIONS BY JON JOHA

Our understanding of Hohokam village life has changed radically over the past four years, and the work at La Ciudad has played its part. Until 1979 most archeologists thought that Hohokam villages showed little to no organizational regularity, a view conditioned in large part by the findings at Snaketown. This site was first excavated in 1934, and again in 1964, by Emil Haury of the University of Arizona at Tucson, and to this day it remains the largest (and one of the best reported) examinations of a Hohokam site.

The site map for Snaketown shows a jumbled arrangement of houses, with no consistent pattern in spacing or orientation. But in a careful reanalysis of that map, David Wilcox was able to show that this pattern actually resulted from repeated occupation of the same location. What one saw at Snaketown reflected a long site history, rather than the true organization of a contemporary Hohokam village.

When Dr. Wilcox considered only the houses from a single time period, it was clear they fell into distinct groups of from two to six, and that the houses in a single group were arranged in a roughly circular pattern facing into a common yard-like area. The fronts of the houses have the effect of defining a somewhat enclosed space. Wilcox called these spaces “courtyards.” Although the evidence was convincing, he treated these conclusions as hypotheses which need to be tested at other sites.

One of our objectives in the excavation of La Ciudad was to find and study thesecourtyard arrangements of houses, and to provide support for Wilcox's ideas. Unfortunately, most of the residential areas of La Ciudad appear to have been occupied for periods of several centuries, a situation very similar to that at Snaketown. Houses were distributed in dense, closely packed arrangements which showed little to nopatterns. We surmise these areas are the result of repeated juxtaposition through time of different courtyard areas. It will take a considerable amount of analysis to segregate the different time periods.

In one small area of La Ciudad, however, we found three very clear expressions of the courtyard arrangement. We think this

text continued from page 11 give a clue. They were diversion ponds for domestic use. The people of the villages along the canal probably had a number of these that would hold water for some time, permitting the silt to settle out and thereby become drinkable.

Finally, visitors to the site arrive at the lab, with the Laboratory Director, Jody Kisselburg, showing the washing operations. Each piece of pottery or stone is washed in a light acid, scrubbed with a soft brush, and set out to dry. In another part of the lab, samples of soil are "floated" in water to obtain small seeds and other organic material. The seeds float to the top, are skimmed off, and bagged for later meticulous microscopic analysis to identify the kinds of plants used for food at the site.

Eventually, by the end of July, the fieldwork will come to an end, but the washing and sorting will continue for several weeks. By September the lab will close down, the artifacts will be transferred to the workrooms on campus, and the detailed analysis will begin. But for now, the job is to excavate La Ciudad, the second largest Hohokam excavation after Snaketown. August, 1983: On July 29, 1983, the fieldwork ends at La Ciudad, except for What have they accomplished? In a total of 3500 "person-days" (a person-day is one day of work by one person) they excavated 205 houses, 17 roasting pits, 111 trash pits, 246 burials, 1 ball court, 2 canals, 3 reservoirs, and 274 test pits. But more importantly, they found a part of the first Phoenix.

October, 1983: In a sense, the work at La Ciudad has only begun when the fieldwork ends. The information taken from the excavation is checked and rechecked before it is entered into computerized files. Each of the 700,000 artifacts will be sorted and cataloged. Special studies will be conducted on microscopic samples of pollen and on seeds and kernels that have been floated out of carefully selected samples of soil. Analysts will examine shell artifacts, ceramics (pottery), and lithics (stone tools). The distribution of artifacts in areas throughout the site will be analyzed statistically to determine the kinds of activities that took place in certain locations. The artifacts and human remains recovered from burials will be analyzed. The system of canals and reservoirs will be studied. Sources will be determined for the kinds of clays in the ceramic artifacts. Animal remains will be identified. Burnt organic material (charcoal, toasted seeds, pieces of plants) will be dated using the carbon 14 method, and sections of fired hearths will be dated archeomagnetically.

It will be two years before the analysis will be completed, but some important preliminary findings have already emerged, particularly concerning community patterns. (See accompanying article.) Other major questions have yet to be answered: Did the Hohokam at La Ciudad grow barley, in addition to summer corn, so they would have a late winter crop to provide food at a time of year when food would be scarce? Did the Hohokam begin to occupy the area as early at 300 B.C. or as late as A.D. 500? The analysis should provide the answers to these major questions, as well as dozens of minor ones. And, in the future, new questions will develop. Answers will be sought from the information taken from La Ciudad. The computerized data base and the curated artifacts themselves will be sources of information for researchers to use for years to come.

They give a kind of immortality to the people of the small Hohokam village along a canal that carried water from the Salt River to their fields during an age when Europe slept in darkness.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE SITE OF LA CIUDAD...visit exhibits on the site at the Heard Museum, 22 East Monte Vista Road, Phoenix, Arizona, and at the Anthropology Museum, Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona.

Natalie Waugh is an administrative manager of archeological projects at Arizona State University and also writes nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.

Additional Reading: Current Issues in Hohokam Prehistory, by David Doyel and Fred Plog, editors, Arizona State University Anthropological Research Papers Number 23, Tempe, Arizona, 1980.

Hohokam: Desert Farmers and Craftsmen, by Emil W. Haury, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona, 1976.

Snaketown Revisited, by David R. Wilcox, Thomas R. McGuire, and Charles Sternberg, Archaeological Series number 155, Arizona State Museum, Tucson, Arizona, 1981.

Hohokam and Patayan: Prehistory of Southwestern Arizona, by Randall H. McGuire and Michael B. Schiffer, Academic Press, New York, 1982.

(OPPOSITE PAGE) Ethnobotanist Dr. Vorsila Bohrer studies seeds and plant fragments from trash pits to determine the nature of the Hohokam diet. (OPPOSITE PAGE, BELOW) With Freeway construction only months away, the excavated areas are reburied as a safety measure. (THIS PAGE, Counterclockwise from below) Metate and mano for grinding corn and grain, groundstone axe, two effigy vessels, decorated bowl, rare hobnail pot emulating the shape of a datura seed pod, and a quail effigy figure.