After a long battle with the desert, the ancient building still commands respect. Four stories high and 60 feet long, it is the largest structure known to exist in Hohokam times. Early Spanish -explorers called it Casa Grande (" Great House"), and to them it was a mystery. Its walls face the four cardinal points of the compass. A circular hole in the upper west wall aligns with the setting sun during the summer solstice. Other openings also align with the sun and moon at specific times. Apparently, the builders of the Great House. people who knew well the ways of the land, gathered inside to ponder the heavens. Knowing the changing positions of celestial objects meant knowing times for planting, harvest. and celebration.
Who were these people who watched the sky so purposefully? Archeologist Emil Haury, who studied the Hohokam, called them the "First Masters of the American Desert." Their origins lay with the Archaic hunter-gatherers who lived in Arizona for several thousand years, but the Hohokam drew also from Mesoamerican civilization. By AD 300 a distinct Hohokam culture was in place along the Gila and Salt Rivers and their tributaries. Like other south-western farming peoples, they lived in permanent settlements. made pottery. and traded. The Hohokam, however, tamed the rivers with irrigation canals. Villages on the main canals formed irrigation communities that regulated the system. In areas without perennial streams. they tapped groundwater or diverted storm runoff into dryland fields.
The people cooperated in trade as well. Villages stood along natural routes between present-day California, the Great Plains. the Colorado Plateau, and northern Mexico. The Hohokam traded mostly pottery and jewelry, for which they received a variety of items. Shells from the Gulf of California were so common that they were probably a medium of exchange. like coins Macaws. mirrors, and copper bells reveal a link to tropical Mexico. as do the shallow, oval pits found in major villages. These may have been arenas for ball games like the Aztecs played. or they may have been gathering places unrelated to sports. Similar ballcourts as far north as Wupatki (a prehistoric site near Flagstaff) show the extent of Hohokam influence.
Declining popularity of ballcourts, in the 12th century AD. marks a gradual change in the Hohokam world. With the onset of the Classic period. around 1150. people left the outlying settlements and concentrated in large riverine villages such as Casa Grande. Open arrangements of pithouses surrounding central plazas gave way to walled compounds. Besides houses the compounds sometimes contained solid, flat-topped structures called platform mounds. The mysterious Great House, completed prior to 1350, also dates from the late Classic period. Its presence tells us that this village was more important than most. This and other Great Houses, situated in villages at the ends of major canals, likely played a part in the organization of irrigation communities.
Classic-period Casa Grande lasted until the 1400s, when Hohokam culture ebbed throughout the Phoenix Basin. In 1694 Father Eusebio Kino and his party of missionaries found an empty shell of the once-flourishing village. The Pima Indians, who lived in brush huts nearby. said that their ancestors were "ho-ho-KAHM," meaning "all gone " or "all used up." Few European-Americans visited the area until the late 19th century, when souvenir hunting threatened to destroy the site. The scientific community pressed for legal protection and in 1892 the Casa Grande became the Nation s first archeological preserve. Fortress-like, the Great House guards within its confines the secrets of an ancient people.
Builders found construction material in the subsoil beneath their feet: caliche (cuh-LEEchee), a concrete-like mixture of sand, clay, and calcium carbonate (limestone). It took 3.000 tons to construct the Great House. Caliche mud was piled in successive courses to form walls 4 feet thick at the base, tapering to-ward the top. Hundreds of juniper, pine, and fir trees were carried or floated 60 miles down the Gila River to the village. Anchored in the walls, the timbers formed ceiling or floor supports. The best efforts of its builders could not protect the house after it fell into disuse. Despite centuries of weathering and neglect, the Great House stands today as the most prominent example of Hohokam technology and social organization.
Please answer these question in order to recieve credit. DO NOT POST YOUR ANSWERS...EMAIL ME AT Wolfb8@netzero.net
1. Who was the first European to visit and document the ruins and what year?
2. Who was the first custodian of the ruins?
3. What is the first sign you see out the south back door say?
4.How many tons of caliche does the Casa Grande contain?
5. When did congress take action to protect the Casa Grande?