The La Lomita Excavations: 10th Century Hohokam Occupuation in South-Central Arizona

Archaeological investigations were conducted at the prehistoric Hohokam Site ofLa Lomita (AZ U:9:67(ASM)) in Phoenix, Arizona, sponsored by the Arizona Department of Transportation. The portion of the site within the project area contained over 30 pithouses, 20 burials, several prehistoric canal segments, and numerous pits. La Lomita was primarily occupied during the late Santa Cruz and Sacaton phases, ranging from about A.D. 890 to 1025. Several house groups were identified, representing a distinctive segment of the larger La Lomita village. Cremation burials, food-processing pits, and trash middens were associated with this occupation. A secondary occupation occurred during the Classic period (A.D. 1100-1450) and was represented by several large roasting pits (homos) and inhumation burials.
The La Lomita villagers subsisted on a full range of desert resources and domesticated crops that include corn, cotton, agave, cacti, grasses, and small mammals. The material culture assemblage consisted of large quantities of ceramics, lithics, shell, and faunal bone. Analyses of the various artifact classes is consistent with a sedentary village in which a diversity of domestic activities took place.
Reconstruction of the site structure revealed distinctive land-use patterns that was compared to other Sedentary period sites. Examination of household and courtyard group economies indicated that within a particular village segment, there is little evidence for individual specialization. Social units probably worked cooperatively on subsistence and other secular tasks. Chronological studies were undertaken that emphasized archaeomagnetic dates from La Lomita and other sites investigated as part of the East Papago Freeway Archaeological Project Ceramic seriations, stratigraphic relationships, and chronometric dates were used to propose a refined chronology for the period from about A.D. 850 to 1100.