6/10/2023 0 Comments Hohokam irrigation canalsA rock embankment (constructed linear feature) extends south from the dugout to an old roadway leading down to the Bear Creek floodplain. Other pieces have been recovered in excavations See Don Everitt's article, " Excavations at the Sabino Canyon Ruin, 1937-1950".ĭugout Illustrated above is a partly dug-out, rectangular, flat-bottomed structure with drylaid masonry walls and a well built but unmortared stone fireplace that was found along the west margin of the ruin at the edge of the Bear Creek stream terrace. Designated Compounds A through D and Enclosure A by previous researchers, the five compounds range from about 25 m to 73 m long apiece, and occupy areas of 0.15 acre to 0.5 acre apiece.Ĭonstructed Linear Feature Boulders and cobbles that appear to have been purposefully piled into meandering lines in at least three places along the edges of the Sabino Creek and Bear Creek stream terraces west and east of the main ruins area may be remnants of low masonry walls or possibly irrigation features.Ĭremation Fragments of isolated cremated bone were found on the surface near the south end of the site. The canal at the edge of the Sabino Creek floodplain is shown on a 1918 government land survey map, so it may have been constructed historically, but the Bear Creek canal is not on historical land survey maps, so either of these canals could have been constructed originally by the Hohokam.Ĭompound Walls Walls of five separate Classic period compounds are traceable on the site surface. The visible canal segments are linear, silt-filled depressions at the bases of stream terrace slopes, with piled boulders and cobbles banked up on the downhill sides of the depressions. Artifacts dating between 19 are concentrated around the sit's historical structures.īedrock Grinding Stones Two mortar holes 10-15 cm in diameter and 2-3 cm deep that were formed by pounding stone pestles into rock surfaces were identified on large boulders in the Sabino Creek and Bear Creek floodplains outside the ruin's main Hohokam habitation area.Ĭanals The survey identified remnants of at least two irrigation canals that diverted water from Sabino Creek and Bear Creek onto those streams' floodplains. ![]() Sabino Canyon Ruin Archaeological Features Identified during Old Pueblo Archaeology Center's AAS Class SurveyĪrtifact Scatter Hohokam pottery and flaked stone pieces cover most of the site area though there are some spaces without significant prehistoric artifact accumulations. ![]() Segments of this canal ( are traceablefor approximately 500 meters, much farther than the visible remnants of the canal we already knew about on the Sabino Creek side. It was not till after 1100, however, that site occupants began building the settlement's above-ground, pueblo-like housing compounds, in an area more than 200 meters north of the originally settled area.Īnother major find is an ancient canal on the Bear Creek side of the ruin. 10 near where Sabino and Bear creeks converge. These heavy artifact scatters and other architectural features we located suggest the Sabino Canyon settlement was founded by pithouse-building Hohokam Indians between A.D. We now know there are several dense artifact concentrations that probably represent locations where the Hohokam had lived in pithouses, outside the ruin's visible surface housing compounds. However, it also revealed that the ruin is about twice as large as that early map suggests. Old Pueblo Archaeology Center's survey relocated all five Hohokam adobe-and-rock-walled housing compounds and outlying rocklined house foundations, the ancient Sabino Creek irrigation canal, and most of the other outdoor prehistoric rock alignments that were shown on the first comprehensive map of the ruin made in 1920-1921 by A. The numbers and kinds of archaeological features identified during the recent Sabino Canyon Ruin-area survey, described in Robin Rutherfoord's, "An Archaeological Survey of the Sabino Canyon Ruin Area" is quite impressive. The Sabino Canyon Ruin Survey: What We Found The article appears with the permission of The Old Pueblo Archaeology Center, (520) 798-1201
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