The Hohokam Millennium (Popular Archaeology) [Paperback]

Suzanne K. Fish (Author, Editor), Paul R. Fish (Author, Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1930618816 | ISBN-13: 978-1930618817 | Publication Date: January 1, 2008

For a thousand years they flourished in the arid lands now part of Arizona. They built extensive waterworks, ballcourts, and platform mounds, made beautiful pottery and jewelry, and engaged in wide-ranging trade networks. Then, slowly, their civilization faded and transmuted into something no longer Hohokam. Are today's Tohono O'odham their heirs or their conquerors? The mystery and the beauty of Hohokam civilization are the subjects of the essays in this volume. Written by archaeologists who have led the effort to excavate, record, and preserve the remnants of this ancient culture, the chapters illuminate the way the Hohokam organized their households and their communities, their sophisticated pottery and textiles, their irrigation system, the huge ballcourts and platform mounds they built, and much more.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The word huhugam means something that is all gone, such as food or when something disappears. Huhugam is used to refer to those people who have disappeared. Who really knows who they were or what happened to them? Did they really all die off, as some theories say, or did all or some of them remain to be the forefathers of the modern-day Tohono O'odham? Today we are here, the Tohono O'odham, and we do not know how far our past generatioins go back in time. We just say that we go back to the Huhugam. We are here today, but we know that some time in the future we will also be called the Huhugam. --Daniel Lopez, May 25, 2010

Chapter 15 by Donald M. Bahr. Bahr discusses how O'odham perceive their relationship to the Hohokam. Much of O'odham oral tradition references Hohokam ruins and states that the O'odham conquered the Hohokam. Bahr argues that relative importance of the Hohokam in O'odham oral tradition suggests that there is a connection between the two groups. Chapter 9 by James M. Bayman. Shell ornaments and beautifully painted ceramics are characteristic of Hohokam society. Bayman explores the craft traditions and craft technology common among the Hohokam. He argues that the presence of large quantities of crafts at villages with platform mounds suggests leaders put effort into accumulating these objects and may have employed craft specialists. --SMRC Revista, Fall/Winter 2009

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: School for Advanced Research Press (January 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1930618816
• ISBN-13: 978-1930618817
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #601,708 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Patricia L. Crown received her A.B. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1974, and her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1981. She held teaching positions at Southern Methodist University and Arizona State University, and has been on the faculty at the University of New Mexico since 1993, where she is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology. Dr. Crown has conducted field investigations in the Ancestral Pueblo, Mogollon, and Hohokam areas of the American Southwest; she recently directed the analysis of artifacts from the trash mounds at Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon. One result of this research was the recent identification of the first prehispanic cacao (chocolate) north of the Mexican border in ceramics from Chaco Canyon. The Society for American Archaeology awarded her the Excellence in Ceramic Research Award in 1994, and the American Anthropological Association gave her (jointly with Suzanne K. Fish) the Gordon Willey Award in 1998. Her books have included three co-edited volumes, Chaco and Hohokam (SAR Press), Social Violence in the Prehispanic Southwest (University of Arizona Press) and Ceramic Production in the American Southwest (University of Arizona Press), the single-authored, Ceramics and Ideology: Salado Polychrome Pottery (University of New Mexico Press), and an edited volume Women and Men in the Prehispanic Southwest: Labor, Power, and Prestige (School of American Research Press).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hohokam in a Nutshell, March 22, 2010

By 

T. Swanson (Phoenix, Az.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hohokam Millennium (Popular Archaeology) (Paperback)

A very insightful summary of current research of the Hohokam migration from Mesoamerica, their lifestyle, building projects, society, etc, The book is comprised of several articles by different authors who are working archaeologists in the areas in which the articles are focused. In many ways the Hohokam seem more advanced than the Anasazi and this is one of the most accessible books about their civilization I have read. There are many excellent illustrations of the general locations of Hohokam dwellings, ball courts and the the canals that they built to irrigate their crops. Many of the canals the Hohokam built are very close to where modern canals are now located which demonstrates the engineering capabilities of these people. In fact the grades chosen are mostly flat and wander around the hills in the Phoenix basin providing water for fields they cultivated in the flatlands. The article on the approximately 200 known ball courts along the Salt, Gila and Verde rivers built by the Hohokam and how the games were similar to those played in the Western area of Mexico, was especially interesting to me. I like how the book discusses different hypotheses and delineates the analysis of why certain views are more likely. In contrast I find Stephen Lekson's books much more focused on the commercial market, more biased and less interesting to read than this excellent and well researched book.