This is the easiest way to actually visit an ancient Hohokam village and to watch it being restored. You could even join a volunteer group in its restoration if you wished. Many of the locals don't even know that this ancient Hohokam ruins exists and is in the City of Mesa, Arizona. With all of that being said, the site is not yet open to the public, and you could only watch the restoration by distance through the protective fence surrounding the area. The Mesa Grande Hohokam Ruins, which dates from the Hohokam Classic Period, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 A Google Earth Map search marks the center of the Mesa Grande Hohokam Ruins at 33o 26' 02.68" N 111o 50' 43.44" W. The elevation is about 1,250 feet. It is thought that this site was used by the ancient Hohokam (ho-ho-KAHM) people in Mesa, Arizona. 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. A Brief 19th Century History: John Bartlett, an Arizona pioneer, was one of the early explorers of this region to document the ruins at Mesa Grande, writing the following statement about his experience: "(July 4, 1852) ...A ride of a mile brought us to the table-land, when we made for a large mound or heap which arose from the plain. In crossing the bottom we passed many irrigating canals; and along the base of the plateau was one from twenty to twenty-five feet wide, and from four to five feet deep, formed by cutting down the bank�a very easy mode of construction, and which produced a canal much more substantial than if carried across the bottom". "On reaching the great pile, I found it to be the remains of an adobe edifice from two hundred to two hundred and twenty-five feet in length, by from sixty to eighty feet wide, its sides facing the cardinal points. Portions of the wall were visible in only two places, one near the summit, at the south end, where, from the height of the pile, it must have originally been three or four stories high; and the other at the northern extremity, on the western side...From the summit of the principle heap, which is elevated from twenty to twenty-five feet above the plain, there may be seen in all directions similar heaps; and about a mile to the east, I noticed a long range of them running north and south, which the Indians said were of similar character to that on which we stood." The Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa, Arizona is sponsoring the ongoing excavation at the Mesa Grande Ruin. They house a wonderful museum. They are located at: 53 North Macdonald Mesa, AZ 85201 (480) 644-2230 The Approximate Physical Ruins Location: Not A Mailing Address Is, Mesa Grande Hohokam Ruins: About 501 West 10th Place Mesa, AZ 85201-3228 We have a link to their website at the bottom of this page.

If you are planning to visit Mesa Grande. 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 also have some links to Altrec.com on this page since they are a good online source for any outdoor camping gear and clothing that you may need. We of course, appreciate your use of the advertising on our pages, since it helps us to keep our pages active.

Mesa Grande, Mesa, Arizona.	Mesa Grande, Mesa, Arizona.

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