The enclosing wall likely marks a significant change in the relationship between the community’s leaders and the general populace. These enclosed mounds are distinctive in that they were not capped trash mounds, but specially constructed platforms with formal architectural features. 1000, when fenced enclosures were built around the mounds. Archaeologists have identified a change in this arrangement at about A.D. No structures were built atop these mounds, so it seems that the activities were conducted in the open for all of the community to witness. The earliest of these were trash mounds that had a plaster coating applied over them to create a hard surface. In some of the larger sites, there also developed a system of platform mounds that appear to have served in public ceremonies. These ball games probably integrated communities into a larger social system that may have extended as far north as the Verde Valley and Flagstaff regions, and as far south as the Tucson area.

While we do not know the specifics of the Hohokam ball game, there are descriptions of contests from central Mexico and Mayan regions, and variations of the game are played today throughout Central America. The ball game tradition is well documented in Mesoamerica-the region of complex civilizations in central Mexico and further south into Guatemala and Honduras.

These are believed to have been courts for playing a ball game. Initially, larger communities featured ritual or ceremonial architecture in the form of large, open, oval-shaped depressions excavated into the ground surface, with soil mounded along the sides to create berms. 1150 to 1200, there was a shift towards surface structures with freestanding adobe walls that were often enclosed within a walled compound. The superstructure was made of branches and brush that were anchored to a center framework of large timbers, and covered with adobe mud plaster. Archaeologists refer to these as “pit houses” or “houses in pit” depending on the nature of the construction. At first, the houses were individual structures constructed within or around a shallow depression excavated into the earth. Larger villages were organized around a central plaza with ceremonial structures. Hohokam settlements varied in size from small, single family farmsteads to large villages of several hundred people. The core-or heart-of the agave plant was also roasted in large hornos (pit ovens) and eaten.

In some areas, agave was particularly important and was cultivated and harvested for the fibers in its leaves, which were processed to make thread and woven cloth. Hallmarks include brown or buff-colored pottery decorated with reddish, ochre (hematite)-based paint a highly developed tradition of shell jewelry manufacturing that included carved pendants a growing a variety of crops, including maize (corn), various beans, squashes, and cotton, which were often irrigated by a complex system of canals and reservoirs as well as the collection of many wild plants, including mesquites, cactus buds, grass seeds, and agave. In the Sonoran Desert regions of southern Arizona, researchers call this developing tradition the “Hohokam” culture. 450-1150 CEĪrchaeologists do not, of course, know what these people called themselves, or how they viewed their community and ties with other settlements in the surrounding regions.

Hohokam native american