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Hohokam Canal System
Abstract
At about the time Christ emerged people began moving into the Gila and Salt River valleys. Very little is in public knowledge about these people that begun the initial small hamlets above the Salt River along its terraces. They are believed to have lived a sedentary agricultural life style through instituting fields along the Salt River margins. They are most likely to have depended on flood waters for their farming. They farmed on wet soils in places that had been swamped when floods and running water bloated their rivers further than their banks. It is feasible that by AD 50 they introduced a competent technology: canal irrigation. This innovation would later lead to the novel Southern Arizona prehistoric culture christened Hohokam. Canal irrigation had previously been employed by people in Southern Mexico who lived along small drainages and rivers. However, their canal systems never arrived at the sophistication and size of the Hohokam Canal System.
The Hohokam Canal System
The earliest Hohokam Canal Systems are believed to have been small canals that were closely located near rivers. In this kind of predisposition the earliest canals must have been especially disposed to demolition through floods. The first large Canals were designed by Hohokam irrigation engineers between A.D. 650 and 750. These canals had the capacity to transport large water quantities onto the Salt River second or upper terrace. By A.D 750-950 a period referred to as the early colonial period, large incorporated canal systems had been established in both the southern and northern sides of the Salt River. These canals were characterized by their large sizes and their monumental shapes. Most of them were over 13 miles in their length with the largest amongst the Hohokam canals being 21 miles about 33km in length. Two large ancient canals are still conserved in part of the four waters located in the southern part of the Archaeological Park and the Pueblo grand museum (Ackerly and Randall 34).
Location of the Hohokam Canal Systems
The Canals are located in the Phoenix valley of Southern Arizona. Hot dry regions in the world have generated some of the most outstanding pre-industrial civilizations. Arizona’s southern desserts are not an exception to this phenomenon. The pertinently named modern Phoenix which is today the fifth largest city in the United States of America, stems not from ashes but the ruins of what is believed to have been the most agriculturally productive and populous valley in the west way before 1600 CE (Breternitz 45).
When the early archeologist Frank Hamilton entered the Salt River in the 1890s he climbed on top of an earthly monument on what would later become latter day Phoenix. He exclaimed that he had discovered one of the most far-reaching ancient settlements that had not been seen before. Before them toward the south, north and east a long series of house mounds lay extended in endless successions. Entrepreneurs that arrived from the Eastern part of the US several decades earlier did not only come across house mounds but also the previous courses of the most immense canals that had ever been built in pre Columbian America. They later enacted large scale irrigation through the laying out of new canals in the footprints of the pre-historic ones. This triggered the growth of what would be the Phoenix City (Haury 123).
In 1922 the City of Phoenix City Engineer Turney Omar used the canals early maps in combination with his knowledge of the ancient Hohokam to publish the first primeval map of the antique canals and ruins of the Salt River valley. The most far-reaching records were published by Midvale Frank an archaeologist who dedicated his life to jotting down traces of the Hohokam as the remains of their culture were ruined by the increasing expansion of urban growth and modern agriculture (Howard 234).
When the first farmers, explorers and trappers penetrated the Salt River valley, they were quick to note the remarkable ruins left behind by the Hohokam. Villages that contained platform mounts, trash mounts and elliptical ball courts covered open ceramic pots and other artifacts that were present in the entire valley. Extending from the river was a vast structure of deserted Hohokam canals (Masse 408).
The ancient canals and ruins were a cause of pride to the untimely settlers who envisaged their robust agricultural civilization taking center stage as the legendary phoenix bird from the Hohokam society ashes. The canals were sometimes used as Wagon roads. Contrastingly, they also created unwanted channels when these areas started being developed by modern day farmers ((Ackerly and Randall 36).
Culture and Society
The extraordinary people referred to by archeologists as the Hohokam were the constructors of the huge canals, earthen monuments, and adobe houses in large amounts that extremely impressed the early visitors to the Salt River valley. From 400 to 1400 CE the Hohokam millennium the basin at the convergence of the Gila and Salt rivers formed the core of their cultural and geographic domains. For 100 decades the Hohokam sustained an acknowledgeable cultural identity amongst the many people who were inhabitants in the ancient south west and neighboring Northwestern Mexico (Breternitz 47).
The remains of polish to brown pottery with designs that are painted in red litter the Southern Arizona basin floors that are low lying. These remains are the most abundant and distinctive material remains of former Hohokam residents; Creative farmers who used a mixed blend of agricultural strategies to farm their crops in the agricultural terrain. They in the end engineered irrigation networks outshined in size and breathe only by the Andean Canals. Apart from generating exclusive artifact styles the Hohokam set themselves apart from their ancestral Mogollon, Pueblo and most archaeological southwest cultures by the kind of public buildings in their big villages. The platform mounds and ball courts reflected the Hohokam community rituals and characteristic beliefs (Haury 127).
The fact that the Hohokam shared similar ways of assembling and adorning pottery as well as other forms of utilitarian design and canon styles shows that they were in close communication with each other and held common understanding of such matters. The fact that they shared farming and crop technologies indicates that they bowed to the same solutions in mitigating the challenges they faced in desert farming. Given that they built similar structures for their communal rituals means that they must have been guided by a mutual set of beliefs (Howard 240).
The unique archeological remains identifying Hohokam heartland stretch over a 30,000 expansive square in the southern half of Arizona an area that is larger than the modern day state of Southern Carolina. The Hohokam culture hallmarks are explicitly bounded by the upper reaches of the Growler Mountains to the west, the Verde and Agua Fria rivers to the north, the Mexican border to the south, the Mogollon rim to the northwest and the Dragoon Mountains to the south east (Masse 410).
In this far flung territory a lot of commonality has been found in archaeological remains, however they also exhibit some differences. Inhabitants of certain sectors chose only elements of the overall cultural package to integrate into their lives. For instance, in the northeastern part of the Hohokam territory is the Tonto basin whose inhabitants used red buff pottery but never constructed ball courts. However, they in the end erected platform mounds. Cultural practices were mixed up in the Tonto basin due to the migration of the Hohokam and the non Hohokam in this area (Ackerly and Randall 40).
When the Spanish explorers reached Hohokam territory in the 17th century they came across Native Americans with diverse lifestyles and languages. They included people speaking; Athabasca languages in western Apache, Piman languages in the central portion and Yuman languages in the Colorado River. This means that the Hohokam were not homogenous in all their cultural aspects (Breternitz 50).
However, the Hohokam remain remarkable in the world because amongst all ancient societies they are the only ones who hold the unique peculiarity of having constructed gigantic canal networks of up to 23 km in length and in the end irrigated large tracts of land to the tune of 80,000 acres. This was all in the absence of any ensuing level of societal complexity including the absence of a state government (Haury 130).
The Hohokam built earthen platform mounts and ball courts of expansive sizes in relation to those that have been found elsewhere around the globe. This was without an established administration. These monuments informed a distinct pattern to the Hohokam territorial landscape (Howard 301).
Construction of the Canal System
Information excavated in the recent past is providing new leads about the engineering of the Hohokam canal. The engineers in this project were zealously aware of the soil, the local topography, drainages, the dips and slopes. They harnessed a complicated knowledge of the water flow through channels as well a sequence of methods for ensuring that water was delivered in the field surfaces. Each method was suitable for a particular topographic setting for instance flat river terraces and steep slopes. These canal systems were developed in respect to the characteristics and needs of the environment (Masse 412).
The canal systems had a chain of physical elements. A wear was constructed at every point that the river met the canal. A wear is a kind of a dam that reaches but does not cross the river completely. The objective was to use it in raising the river’s water level and direct it into the canal. In the canal a head gate which refers to a large water control gate was built. This ensured that the amount of water that entered the canal was put under control. The major canals transported the water towards the fields and away from the river. Research indicates that major canals were conspicuously large at their junctions with the river; however, they tended to reduce in size as they advanced towards their finishing point (Ackerly and Randall 50).
Materials
The stone was scooped by hand through using huge wedge shaped pieces of stones which were referred to as stone hoes. Wooden digging sticks were also employed to ensure the soil was loosened. The soil was then taken away from the canals by use of large baskets. Discrepancies on the size of the simple leveling frame that has been employed in several preindustrial agrarian societies may have been employed to set up canal gradients. It is also believed that water was carried along in the canal in the course of construction in order to ensure that the soil was loosened. This meant that the system utilized more time and labor. The flooded canal was then dammed and the water permitted to disperse before resuming construction (Breternitz 50).
Exterior Design
Visitors to the Salt River valley are more often than not surprised when they come across a fertile agricultural region prospering in the arid Arizona desert. Nonetheless these contemporary agricultural precedents are not without a beginning. From AD 550 to 1460 the ancient Hohokam built one of the biggest and most complicated irrigation networks ever constructed by the use of ancient technology. By AD 1150 hundreds in miles of these incredible waterways generated green paths that stemmed from the Gila and Salt rivers. These green paths were dotted with huge platform mounts which made them gain a lot of attention from the local archaeologists (Haury 131).
When farmers purchased land areas that were affected by prehistoric canals they were premeditated and taken away from the purchase to counterbalance costs sustained in filling it. When the modern farmers began filling traces of the ancient canals a number of high-flying citizens started being interested in these archaic monuments. They developed maps that indicated the locations of mounds, canals and villages. This forms the foundation of the modern day Hohokam scholarship. Local farmers generated maps of the canals located on the southern side of the Salt River in what is the modern day Chandler, Tempe and Mesa (Howard 350).
Interior Design
Recent reconstructions of ancient canals indicate that about 900,000 cubic meters of soil could have been dug out while doing excavations for the major canals in both the classic and colonial periods. Apart from that it is also estimated that 500, 000 cubic meters of soil may have been excavated during the sedentary era (AD 850-1160).
The decrease in the amount of water that travelled in the canal through seepage, and evaporation, led to a reduction in the size of the channel that carried the water. When the channel was reduced the water’s velocity remained rather constant and was somehow between two fundamental brinks. The sides of the canal were eroded if the water was allowed to travel too fast. On the other hand, soil particles would settle out of the water if it was allowed to slow down. When this occurred the water canal silted up necessitating increased maintenance. Distribution canals were made to take water out of the major canal systems transporting it to the fields. They were also utilized in manipulating the relationship between the ground surface and the canal’s water level (Masse 413).
Several kinds of control features were used to manage water distribution systems. Diversion gates have been found at control features junctions to adjust the flow of water. Water control gates or tapons were usually erected in the distribution as well as the key canals. Whenever it was closed the tapon caused the water to back up and rise in altitude, this created head water. By using water control features the Hohokam created a very complicated irrigation system.
Labor Force
Construction of the Hohokam canal system necessitated a considerable amount of human labor. The amount of labor that was necessary for the construction of the Hohokam canal system partly relied on the amount of water that flowed in the Salt River at any one given point in time. In both the Classic and Colonial times the Hohokam went through various flooding periods of the Salt River. The floods more often than not annihilated the canals which had to be subjected to more redesigning and reconstructing faces. The amount of labor and time that was required to build the major canals cannot be estimated (Ackerly and Randall 52).
Various factors including the number of continuous days, the amount of soil excavated by one worker in a day, the number of persons working per day, the number of discontinuous days and the amount of time workers worked on each day over the entire period in which the work was done all impact on the approximation of labor and time exhausted in the entire period in which the Hohokam Canal system was constructed. Since one individual has the capacity to excavate three cubic meters of soil in a day, the construction of multi canals would need over 25,000 person days. This indicates that some canals took so many years to be completed. It is estimated that it may have taken 1 million person days of coordinated labor to build the trunk lines of only one major Phoenix basin canal system. This does not include the amount of labor and time needed to make repairs after floods and storms, build secondary lines in the fields, as well as clean up the yearly build up of canal sediments (Breternitz 60).
The operation, construction and maintenance of the canal systems must have thus required a considerable and well managed effort. Individuals from all villages along the major canals must have contributed to the first construction and to the expected maintenance of the canals wears and head gates, resolving of confined disputes, and the establishment of water scheduling and allocations. Small and more local groups of farmers would organize for the building and preservation of distribution and branch canals. Unlike most traditional groups in northwestern and southwestern Mexico the Hohokam must have had a sophisticated sociopolitical structure.
If It Were Built Today
The Hohokam canal was built in AD 550 to 1460, and rebuilt in the 1920s. As much as the rebuilding was about 10 decades ago its construction is not very distinct from the modern day construction of canal systems. The Hohokam employed several techniques that are being utilized by today’s engineers and would probably continue being used in the future. For instance the use of diversion gates in the Hohokam canals is still being employed in modern day canal systems. Apart from that the damming of canals to allow flooded water to disperse also occurs in modern day construction of canal systems. Additionally human labor is also being used to excavate soil and stones from the canals. As much as more developed machines are being used to replace the stone hoes and digging sticks the idea is still the same (Haury 145).
Today rather than excavate the canals with stone hoes and digging sticks for 25,000 human working days modern day sophisticated construction cranes can excavate an entire canal for less than a year. Additionally, the kind of transport system in use today is more efficient and sophisticated than what was being used in the ancient ages. Dump trucks and flat bed trailers have now replaced the human labor that was used to move the debris, stones and waste for many years (Howard 360).
In modern day construction of canals permanent dykes are constructed to dam the canals unlike in the ancient days when the damming was temporarily done. If reconstruction of the canal is done today 120 million tons of soil is likely to be excavated. This is more than half the amount of soil that was excavated during the ancient construction of the canal. Apart from that given the efficiency and sophistication of modern day machines, the project is likely to create 40, 000 new jobs (Masse 415).
In addition today’s designers use computers to aid them in their work in comparison to the ancient age engineers. They are capable of stimulating, drafting, animating and estimating different angles of building the canals that the early engineers had to draft on the ground. Modern day engineers know how the canal is likely to react under different amounts of water before even they break the ground. The advantages that modern day Engineers have is that they can adopt the knowledge of the ancient Engineers and improve on it to come up with better and more efficient and cost effective canals (Ackerly and Randall 56).
Works Cited
Ackerly, Neal W., Jerry B. Howard and Randall H. McGuire La Ciudad Canals: A Study of Hohokam Irrigation Systems at the Community Level. Arizona State University Anthropological Field Studies, No. 17. Tempe (2010): 34-56 Print.
. Breternitz, Cory D. Prehistoric Irrigation in Arizona: Symposium 1988. Soil Systems Publications in Archaeology No. 17, Phoenix. (2009): 45-76. Print.
Haury, Emil W. The Hohokam: Desert Farmers and Craftsmen, The University of Arizona Press, Tucson.(2006): 123-154. Print.
Howard, Jerry B. and Gary Huckleberry The Operation and Evolution of an Irrigation System: The East Papago Canal Study. Soil Systems Publications in Archaeology No. 18, Phoenix. (2009): 234-456. Print.
Masse, Bruce Prehistoric Irrigation Systems in the Salt River Valley, Arizona. Science 214(23): (2008): 408-415. Print.
