![]() ![]() They developed unique ways of irrigating (watering) the land, adapting to the unpredictable environment that varied between long cycles of dry weather and irregular bursts of drenching rainfall. All three cultures depended on hunting, gathering, and farming for their food supply. Over the centuries, their farming and livestock-raising led to the formation of settled communities.īy about 1 ce, three major cultures began to distinguish themselves in the Southwest: the Mogollon (pronounced mug-gee-OWN), Hohokam (hoe-hoe-KUM), and Anasazi (ah-nah-SAH-zee). They, too, were hunter-gatherers, but by about 1500 bce, they began to harvest plants, to sow their seeds, and to raise animals for food. During the next five thousand years, people known as desert dwellers settled in the Southwest. As the Ice Age ended, these hunters apparently migrated east. The earliest group of hunter-gatherers arrived in the Southwest around ten- or fifteen thousand years ago, probably pursuing the giant mammals of the Ice Age (a period from 2 million to 11,500 years ago in which much of the Earth was covered in ice sheets). “We also give a description of the Hohokam and a description of design theories,” Evans said. “The archaeological community has been very supportive of this.More than ten thousand years before the first Europeans arrived, Native North Americans settled in what is today the southwestern United States, an area that includes present-day Arizona, New Mexico, southern Utah, southern Colorado, and parts of Nevada. Basically we want to present a Hohokam worldview through their art.”Įvans said the chapters include plants and animals, rock art, sacred landscapes, and sacred celestial objects. We’re examining what icons would a typical villager recognize as part of a Hohokam mythical cycle, what symbols might identify someone as ‘Hohokam’ as opposed to other, what patterns in Hohokam art and iconography symbolize cultural concepts and are evidence of their social activities and belief systems. “Our goal in this book is to identify and follow different artworks by the Hohokam to see what knowledge was widespread, and what was restricted. “We’re looking at every type of artifact: stone, figurines, rock art,” Evans said. If many of the geometric shapes in Hohokam pottery design actually represent plants, then it would seem that the Flower World imagery is more prevalent than once thought.”Įvans said her next step is expanding her hypothesis for publication in a book with Linda Gregonis, a widely respected Arizona-based archaeological consultant. ““For example, researchers believe that the Flower World, an early complex of imagery and metaphor that traveled from Mesoamerica into the Southwest, really did not reach the Hohokam. “It used to be thought that the Hohokam was a backwater community, but it’s more complicated than that,” Evans said. Evan’s work brings a new insight to the field.”Įvans said representations of plants on Hohokam pottery could be an indication of Mesoamerican influence. “I’m always interested in people who challenge perceived wisdom. “Everyone looked at this pottery and assumed dismissively that these geometric patterns didn’t have any meaning,” Lail said. ![]() Lail, a Highlands professor of anthropology, said he was intrigued by Evans’ hypothesis. “You can use agave for many things including needle and thread.” “You can find prehistoric agave roasting pits that would go on for acres,” Evans said. ![]() ![]() Design is also a communicative tool that transmits information within and between social groups.”Įvans said one example of a common geometric pattern in the area is a chevron pattern, which could be a representation of agave leaves. “Design is a form of visual communication, which is particularly important among cultures that lack a written language,” Evans said. “Plants were food, medicine, fuel and structural material. “Given that so many other elements of the natural world were incorporated into their pottery designs, it is reasonable to expect that some of the geometric designs on Hohokam vessels are intended to represent plants,” Evans said. Hohokam pottery often portrays reptiles, birds, insects and wildlife important to their culture, but it was believed depictions of plants were absent, Evans said. “If you stand in the desert, you see the plant life is geometrically shaped.”Įvans and Lail studied pottery from the Hohokam, who lived in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert from A.D. “You draw what you see and what’s important to you in the world around you,” said Evans, who received her master’s degree in Southwest studies with a focus on anthropology from Highlands in 2010. Vic Evans and Warren Lail published their hypothesis last month in the Journal of Southwestern Anthropology and History. LAS VEGAS, NM – Geometric patterns on pre-Columbian pottery in the Sonoran Desert could be inspired by the region’s plant life, according to two Highlands University archaeologists. ![]()
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