North America, Southwest: Hohokam

Caseldine, Christopher

doi:10.1016/b978-0-323-90799-6.00079-3

Cited by 1 publication

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“…The Hohokam of the Phoenix Basin, located in central Arizona and bisected by portions of the perennial Salt and Gila rivers (Figure 1), operated one of the largest and longest lived preindustrial irrigation complexes in the world, and the most extensive north of Peru (Doolittle, 2000;Fish & Fish, 2007;Haury, 1976). Additionally, between A.D. 475 and 1450 (Table 1), the ancient farmers of the Phoenix Basin saw the rise and fall of regional ballcourts and marketplaces, a shift toward social exclusion denoted by towering adobe compound walls, and a proliferation and standardization of platform mound ceremonialism (Caseldine, 2023). The end of the Hohokam cultural sequence, ca.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A critical evaluation of soil salinization, waterlogging, and agricultural productive capacity in Hohokam irrigation of the Phoenix Basin, Arizona, USA

Caseldine

2023

J of Env Quality

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A causal link between environmental degradation and societal collapse has captivated the imagination of generations of archaeologists, historians, and the public. At its core, it is believed that the agricultural aspirations of societies outstrip what the environment can offer. The Hohokam, who farmed the Phoenix Basin of Arizona, USA, for nearly a millennium (AD 475–1450), have been repeatedly used as an exemplar of incongruence between the environment and agricultural practices leading to crop failures and ultimately societal collapse. Contributing to the collapse narrative is crop failures that spread across the lower Salt River Valley during the late 1800s. Unacknowledged by collapse narratives is that unproductive fields were brought back to life at the start of the twentieth century with techniques not beyond the capability of the Hohokam. Hohokam farmers and their descendants maintained and prospered in the valley for more than a millennium, so the assumed unidirectionality toward degraded productive capacity warrants examination. In this article, five lines of evidence are used to assess the relationships among soil salinization, waterlogging, and agricultural productive capacity. The multistep approach reveals that available evidence fails to substantiate soil salinization and waterlogging as primary catalysts in the decline of Hohokam irrigation. As such, establishing causality between environmental factors and societal decline in the past requires multiple lines of evidence producing contextually detailed syntheses, rather than simple models.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A critical evaluation of soil salinization, waterlogging, and agricultural productive capacity in Hohokam irrigation of the Phoenix Basin, Arizona, USA

Caseldine

2023

J of Env Quality

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

North America, Southwest: Hohokam

Cited by 1 publication

References 2 publications

A critical evaluation of soil salinization, waterlogging, and agricultural productive capacity in Hohokam irrigation of the Phoenix Basin, Arizona, USA

A critical evaluation of soil salinization, waterlogging, and agricultural productive capacity in Hohokam irrigation of the Phoenix Basin, Arizona, USA

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