La Ciudad Canals: A Study of Hohokam Irrigation Systems at the Community Level

The nineteenth-century farmers, merchants, and prospectors who settled in the Salt River Valley of Arizona encountered one of the most dense and most visible concentrations of prehistoric ruins in North America. They named their new city Phoenix because they envisioned it rising up from the ashes of the prehistoric Hohokam culture. One of the most pronounced features discovered was large irrigation canals that stretched across most of the valley floor--an ancient irrigation network, the magnitude of which they would not match until the early part of this century (Figure 1.1). In less than 50 years, the construction of a modern irrigation network and the building of Phoenix, Tempe, Mesa and other Anglo towns of the Salt River Valley erased most of the surface indications of the prehistoric Hohokam irrigation system. The inevitability of this destruction was obvious by the 1880s, and archaeologically inclined observers began to record what evidence remained of the ancient canals and to speculate on how the prehistoric peoples had used them. Archaeological interest in the Hohokam canals continues today, but we are left with only a fragmentary record composed of old maps, aerial photographs, and the usually truncated remains of canals in the earth. We continue to investigate this record because a knowledge of when these canals were built, how they were used, and why they were abandoned remains central to any understanding of prehistory in southern Arizona.19世纪定居于亚利桑那州盐河河谷的农民、商人与探矿者，曾邂逅北美最为密集且最易辨识的史前遗址聚集区之一。他们将这座新建城市命名为菲尼克斯（Phoenix），期许它能从史前霍霍坎（Hohokam）文化的灰烬之中重生。彼时被发现的最显著特征之一，是横贯河谷绝大多数区域的大型灌溉渠——这套古代灌溉网络的规模，直至本世纪初才被现代人类比肩（图1.1）。 在不足50年的时间里，现代灌溉网络的兴建，以及菲尼克斯、坦佩、梅萨等盐河河谷盎格鲁裔定居城镇的建设，几乎抹除了史前霍霍坎灌溉系统的绝大多数地表遗存。至19世纪80年代，这种破坏的必然性已昭然若揭，热衷考古的观测者们开始记录残存的古运河遗迹，并推究史前先民如何利用这些水利设施。时至今日，学界对霍霍坎运河的考古研究仍在延续，但我们仅能依靠旧地图、航空摄影照片，以及地表残存且大多已被截断的运河遗迹，拼凑出支离破碎的记录。我们仍在对这份记录展开深入探究，因为厘清这些运河的修筑时序、使用方式与废弃缘由，仍是理解亚利桑那州南部史前史的核心要义。