Early Agriculture and Hohokam Gardens
Before the introduction of agriculture people were mobile hunters and gatherers, moving with the seasons and the availability of edible plants and animals. Then, more than 4,000 years ago the genesis of North American agriculture appeared in the Tucson Basin. During archaeological excavations conducted on this site a 4,100 year-old ear of small-cob corn was unearthed. Over time, beans and squash were also domesticated, making up the “three sisters” (corn, beans and squash): the primary farmed foods of the Americas. Amaranth was eventually added to this group, becoming a fourth sister.
Photo: Artistic interpretation of early agriculture at the Mission Garden site, by Robert Ciaccio
2100 BC - AD 50, Early Agricultural period
- Maize was cultivated by 2100 BC in the Tucson Basin. Though providing relatively dependable harvests, the need for wild plants and animals remained critical.
- The people continued to eat around 30 wild food plants, especially amaranth seed, mesquite seed pods, agave hearts, and tansy mustard.
- Animals ranging from rodents to deer, along with jackrabbits and cottontails, were important sources of protein.
- The people established agricultural settlements on the floodplain, living in pithouses at least part of the year.
- Development of a canal system began during this period.
- The primary social group was the family.
The Early Agricultural period (previously called the Late Archaic period) was when domesticated plant species were first cultivated in the Greater Southwest. The precise timing of the introduction of cultigens from Mexico is not known, although direct radiocarbon dates on maize (corn) indicate it was being cultivated in the Tucson Basin and several other portions of the Southwest by 2100 B.C. (Mabry 2006). By at least 400 B.C., groups were living in substantial agricultural settlements in the floodplain of the Santa Cruz River. Recent archaeological investigations suggest canal irrigation also began sometime during this period.
Early Agriculture and Hohokam Gardens along the acequia (Jerome West in the background)
AD 50 - 500, Early Ceramic Period
This period is also called the Agua Caliente Phase. The widespread use of ceramic containers marks this time of transition.
- Simple undecorated pottery began to emerge.
- Pottery allowed for new methods of preparing and storing foodstuffs.
- Architectural features of buildings were more formalized and substantial, with extensive architectural experimentation.
- People lived in these buildings year round.
- Domesticated beans, squash, cotton and agave were introduced.
- Tobacco seeds and pipes from this period have been found.
- Canal systems were expanded.
- Population growth resulted from the expanded canal systems and irrigated fields.
- Trade networks expanded: pottery, shells, turquoise and obsidian.
The Early Ceramic period was poorly known prior to the early 1990s, when two archaeological projects related to road construction encountered materials dating to this crucial five-century block of time.
Left: Jerome West tending to the Early Agriculture Garden // Center: Chapalote corn, panic grass, devil's claw, and amaranth // Right: Volunteers planting seeds
AD 500 - 1150, Hohokam Pre-Classic period
The people remained desert farmers, but specialization emerged, such as an entire groupmaking and trading pottery.
- Decorated red-on-brown pottery wares are characteristic of the period.
- Homes clustered around formal courtyards.
- Each courtyard group had its own cemetery and agave roasting pit.
- By AD 500, hamlets and villages were grouped along the Santa Cruz River.
- By AD 750, larger villages occupied the floodplain and its major tributaries.
- Smaller settlements in the outlying area served as seasonal camps for specific tasks: hunting, gathering, limited agriculture.
- The population continued to increase.
- Ballcourt villages (communal plaza surrounded by houses), thought to be used for ceremonies and games, began to appear.
- By AD 950, settlements were moving into the foothills, though the largest villages were still on the floodplain.
Use of most wild foods declined as people grew more reliant on crops. By AD 1000, sedentary Hohokam farmers were using very large irrigation canals to produce predictably bountiful harvests. The range of wild plant foods that were used narrowed to mostly include mesquite pods, cactus fruit, and a few agricultural commensal plants such as goosefoot, pigweed, seepweed, and tansy mustard. As populations grew, farming may have been less able to meet demands, and people began once again to consume marginal foods, including cotton seeds and some of the more productive wild grasses such as little barley and sacaton.
AD 1150 - 1450, Hohokam Classic period
- Groups began to build aboveground adobe structures in addition to pithouses.
- Extremely large “rock-pile field systems,” associated with growing agave, were developed.
- Platform mounds associated with organized labor efforts supplanted ball courts.
- “By the time Tucson Basin communities were building platform mounds, people had left most of the smaller villages, and settlement was largely concentrated in the best watered areas" (Diehl 2018, 29).
By 1450, the Hohokam tradition, as presently known, disappeared from the archaeological record.
Gita Bodner shows the difference between little barley (a native plant cultivated by ancient peoples that has great potential for local farming in the future) and foxtail barley (an invasive nonnative plant with little known ethnobotanical value).
Learn More About Some of the Plants in the Early Agriculture and Hohokam Gardens
Sources:
Diehl, Michael. “ Tucson Underground, 4,000 Years of History ,” Archaeology Southwest Magazine, Vol. 32, No. 4, Fall 2018.
Thiel, Homer and Michael Diehl. Chapter 3: Cultural History of the Tucson Basin and the Project Area , in Brach, Diehl, and Thiel. Archaeological Investigation in 2007 and 2008 at the Mission and Mission Garden Loci of the Clearwater Site, AZ BB:13:6 (ASM), and the Santa Cruz River Westside Canals, AZ BB:13:481 (ASM) Tucson, Pima County, Arizona.
Thiel, Homer. " Time of Transition: The Early Ceramic Period in the Tucson Basin ," Desert Archaeology, 2017.
