If you think about those canals and braid them together in your mind, that’s the Salt River.” Likewise, the Hohokam live on in their descendants, the O’odham people, and many of their ancient canals formed the foundations of the Salt River Project network that provides our water today. He emphasizes that though many people think the Salt River is dried up, “it’s passing through town right now in the canals. Laugharn hopes the app highlights the continuity of local people and landscapes. So they partnered with Scottsdale Public Art, consulted with local tribes to ensure accuracy and cultural sensitivity, and updated the technology. The farmers were usually responsible for letting the water from the canals to the fields and managing the fields surface to ensure the water was flowing to the required places, at the required speed, and at the required times.
HOHOKAM CANALS PORTABLE
But Laugharn and Howard felt the maps needed to be more portable and widely available. The Hohokam canal systems were constructed with respects to the characteristics of the environment and the needs of locals. Jerry Howard, a curator at the Arizona Museum of Natural History. It debuted in the 1990s as a CD-ROM based on maps from archaeologist Dr. “We’ve been trying to tell this story with cases of artifacts and with ruins – very few of which remain – and we needed another way to tell the story and involve the public.”Ī Deeper Map is the result of decades of work. “ a way of animating the deep human history of the Valley that hasn’t been done,” Laugharn explained at a recent local Spirit of the Senses salon. The app includes historical photos, text and videos that unveil the remnants of terraced agave farms at South Mountain, or a canal that powered Hayden Flour Mill and established the line for the Light Rail. Users can locate themselves on streets or parks, then swipe right to peel away modernity and reveal waterways and farmland from centuries ago.
HOHOKAM CANALS FREE
Now, Tempe artist Richard Laugharn is reviving this irrigation culture through a free app called A Deeper Map, available through the Apple App store and Google Play. Yet they’ve evaporated from our collective memories like raindrops in July. Constructed by the Hohokam from 100 to 1450 CE, these engineering marvels are the reason Phoenix exists. They managed this feat by collectively maintaining an extensive infrastructure of canals with collaborative labor.ĭavid Anderson writes about the research and excavations done unveiling a detailed new look at the repair and maintenance of two Hohokam canals near the Salt River.A new app uncovers the Hohokam canals that once flowed throughout Phoenix and sustained a remarkable culture.īeneath your feet is a landscape once laced with the largest canal system in the New World – at least 500 miles of hand-dug channels that funneled water to fields of corn, beans, squash and cotton.
450-1400, a Native American group known today as the Hohokam overcame a harsh desert environment along with periodic droughts and floods to settle and farm much of modern Arizona. So the Hohokam civilization of Arizona built and maintained an intricate system of canals that not only protected them from the floods but also provided a network of irrigation and water supply that benefited them greatly. Natural disasters would cause a great impact in their lives, with droughts sucking up all the water and floods ruining the crops and possibly taking lives. At the start of any society or civilization is the advent of agriculture and the pioneering technologies that make it more convenient and productive.įor agricultural societies, water is a very important resource.
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