Hole In The Rock is an ancient "sun watch station" used by the ancient people who lived in the area of Arizona that is now modern day Phoenix. There has been very little research conducted regarding this site and little is known other than it was used definitely to mark the Solar Solstices and Equinox. It is reached by entering Papago Park in Phoenix, Arizona and simply following the signs to "Hole In The Rock". When the road ends, you will be in a nice picnic area and there is a very short, easy trail right up to the sun watch station. This is a place "Begging for Research". I am attempting to show this to people on the internet, hoping that someone will take an interest to do a serious study of the site. A Google Earth Map search marks the center of the Hole In The Rock at 33o 27' 23.41" N 111o 56' 43.20" W. The elevation is about 1339 feet. It is thought that this site was used by the Hohokam. According to oral tradition, the Hohokam may be the ancestors of the historic Akimel O'odham and Tohono O'odham peoples in Southern Arizona. The Hohokam culture, which spanned some 1450 years � from 1 A. D. in the first millennium to A. D. 1450 � suddenly appeared and vanished into the darkness of history. During that time, the Hohokam raised new standards in innovation, art, and craftsmanship. They also had trade and cultural connections into Mesoamerica. Based upon the first archaeological evidence, researchers believed that early Hohokam pioneers into northern Sonora and southern Arizona, imported a more advanced Mesoamerican influence into the area, founding the Hohokam culture, around the beginning of the first millennium. Based upon later archaeological evidence, other researchers believed that local descendants of the ancient hunting and gathering traditions of the desert, responded to influences from Mesoamerica and emerged as the Hohokam. Yet other students have suggested that the Hohokam immigrants arrived from an unknown Mesoamerican region and swept across the deserts of southern Arizona and northern Mexico. It is thought by those researchers that the Hohokam immigrants probably over ran the hunter/gatherers in the region of southern Arizona, sometime in the second half of the first millennium. Yet other investigators say that the Hohokam region was nothing more than a Mesoamerican frontier outpost. And others believe that the Hohokam culture represented nothing more than a local cultural development with a Mesoamerican tint. In any case, not much is known about their origins. The Hohokam occupied a geologically and ecologically diverse region, which extended from the basin and range and the low desert country of northern Sonora and southern Arizona northward into the Mogollon Rim escarpment and onto the southwestern edge of the Colorado Plateau. The Hohokam people had many settlements in the Gila and Salt River valleys of southern Arizona. They built rectangular pit houses from earth, rather than stone, and lived in small villages. They cremated their dead and placed the ashes in a specially prepared pit Although the Hohokam relied a great deal on hunting and gathering, they also were skilled farmers and excellent engineers. They were a peaceful people who cooperated to build large canal networks. Some of their canals were over ten miles long and used gravity to control water flow and to flush out the silt. Between the 7th and 14th centuries they built and maintained these extensive irrigation networks along the lower Salt and middle Gila rivers that rivaled the complexity of those used in the ancient Near East, Egypt, and China. These were constructed using relatively simple excavation tools, without the benefit of advanced engineering technologies. These highly successful agricultural techniques produced a surplus of food. Villages and populations grew. Over the next 1500 years the Hohokam expanded their settlements into the Tucson Basin, then to the Phoenix area, and as far north as present-day Flagstaff.

If you are planning to visit "Hole In The Rock". And if you are coming from outside of Arizona, you could fly into the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and then rent a car. There are many hotels and motels in the area. We have some links to Priceline.com on this page since they can arrange all of your air flights, hotels and car. We of course, appreciate your use of the advertising on our pages, since it helps us to keep our pages active.