![]() The earliest Hohokam communities were found along the Salt River. “As prehistoric peoples shifted to a more sedentary, agricultural way of life, the population would have expanded, requiring more water to produce more crops,” Vernon said. The Hohokam may have been driven to irrigate the desert environment both by necessity and in response to environmental changes, said Danielle Vernon, education assistant at the museum. This system supported the largest population in the prehistoric Southwest, the Arizona Museum of Natural History website says. Historians estimate the ancient water system may have irrigated up to 44,516 ha (110,000 ac) by 1300 C.E. These deep trenches branched off into a smaller network of canals. ![]() In one case, Arizona Museum of Natural History researchers discovered a prehistoric canal that measured 4.6 m (15 ft) deep and 13.7 m (45 ft) wide. Using stone hoes, the Hohokam hand-dug hundreds of miles of irrigation ditches. Around 600 C.E., the young agricultural civilization did something that no North American culture before them had done to sustain their crops: they constructed a large and sophisticated irrigation system. Part of that long, rich history can be attributed to a breakthrough water technology: canals.īeginning around 300 C.E., the Hohokam people settled the arid desert environment of the Gila and Salt River Valley, an area that encompasses present-day Phoenix, according to Arizona Museum of Natural History (Mesa) research. ![]() The Hohokam Native American society flourished for almost 1500 years in what is today central Arizona. The ruins of the ancient Hohokam irrigation system can be found at the Park of the Canals in Mesa, Ariz. ![]()
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