The "Collapse" of Cooperative Hohokam Irrigation in the Lower Salt River Valley

• Published in: Journal of the Southwest Vol. 57; no. 4; pp. 609 - 674
• Main Authors: Hill, J. Brett, Lyons, Patrick D., Clark, Jeffery J., Doelle, William H.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Tucson Southwest Center at the University of Arizona 22.12.2015; The Southwest Center, University of Arizona; University of Arizona
• Subjects: Analysis; Anthropology; Canals; Cooperation; Demography; Hohokam culture; Hypotheses; Irrigation; Irrigation (Agriculture); Occupations; Oral tradition; Population decline; Social factors; Space; Traditions; Wilcox, David; Arizona; Salt River
• DOI: 10.1353/jsw.2015.0015
• ISSN: 0894-8410; 2158-1371

[...]we discuss indicators of migration and social diversity in oral traditions and the archaeological record, emphasizing the importance of interplay between social and ecological factors. There was sufficient land and water to support continued occupation of the lower Salt, but as the social and ecological relationships among settlements along canal systems changed, it became increasingly difficult to sustain profitable cultivation near canal intakes. [...]it was not the magnitude of degradation that doomed Classic period irrigation systems along the lower Salt, but the location of those effects in relation to vital system components, attempts to keep these large systems going in a context of declining population, and the arrival of populations with divergent historical traditions and motivations.