ANALYTICAL APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING INTEGRATED HOHOKAM AGRICULTURE

We briefly review the implementations and contributions of two micro- and macro- botanical analyses in advancing our understanding of the integrated agricultural systems of Hohokam (Ancestral O’odham) agriculturalists in southern and central Arizona. We characterize Hohokam agricultural systems as integrated because they encompass multiple topographic/environmental zones and their corresponding productive practices within distinctive units of Hohokam civic and territorial organization termed “communities.” We emphasize our familiarity with two widespread analytical techniques: pollen extracted from archaeological contexts and the predominantly charred plant remains from flotation, while acknowledging the rapidly growing body of additional methodologies.

The boundaries of communities within the Hohokam Tradition offer the widest scale and diversity of prehispanic Southwest U.S. agricultural endeavors, ranging from the largest canal systems north of Peru on the Salt and Gila rivers to the driest desert sectors where reservoir duration was critical for extended habitation and even circumscribed plantings. A remarkable abundance of projects, samples, and analyses have illuminated many facets of irrigated agriculture, floodwater farming, and the deployment of features to capture non-channelized runoff. Topics include seasonality, cultivation practices, crop specialization, intensification, storage, and patterns of land use rights. We will particularly highlight emerging parameters of agave cultivation based on settlement and environmental zone correlates, in conjunction with botanical analyses that span the integrated agricultural landscapes of a Hohokam community near Tucson.