Pueblo Grande MuseumProfiles No. 14

PUEBLO GRANDENatiorwl Historic LandmarkIntroduction

Pueblo Grande National HistOlic !#ndmark isaprehistOlic Hohokam village preselved by the Cityof Phoenix as a cultmal park and interpreted througha musewn and outdoor trail. The cultmal parkcontains the central, lOO-acre portion of the Oligil\alprehistoric village, which was more than 500 acres atits greatest extent. Pueblo Grande has an interesting,multifaceted histOlY. The archaeological studyof the site has provided insights into how ancientpeople swvived and prospered in a seemingly harshenvironment. In addition, Pueblo Grande represents afascinating historical account of the developmentof an archaeological park and the vatious individualsassociated with its investigation.

The Sonoran Deseltand the Hohokam Culture

The Salt River Valley in south-central A!izonais located in the nOithem pmt of the Sonoran Desett,a beautiful but mid landscape best known for its hugesaguaro cacti. For perhaps as many as 1500 years, theSonoran Desert was the home of an ancient cultmearchaeologists have called the Hohokam, nmned for aPima (Akimel O'Odham) Indian word meaning allused up or those that have gone.

Ruins containing the Hohokam's charactelisticred-on-buff pottety are scattered over ml area of atleast 40,000 square miles, but they are most frequentin the Salt River Valley and the nearby Gila RiverValley. These desett fmmers are admired for theirlengthy occupation of the deselt (ca. A.D. 1to 1450),

their impressive cultmal accomplishments includingcomplex irrigation systems and adobe architectme,and their omate craft items such as jeweily made ofcalved marine shell and impOited stone. In addition,the Hohokam were active in trade networks withother prehistoric cultmes that stretched across theentire Southwest, from New Mexico to Califomia mldnOithem AJ-izona to northem Mexico. For reasons stillunclear, the Hohokam cultme collapsed dming the15th centwy, just before Colwnbus arrived in the NewWorld. The Pima, Tohono O'Odham (Papago), andHopi Indians claim the Hohokam as their ancestors.

Pueblo Grande and Southwest ArchaeologyThe Hohokam ruins located on the north side of

the Salt River and two miles west of the PapagoButtes were given the name Pueblo GraruJ.e, Spanishfor Large Town, by Omm' Turney in the 1920s.Tumey was aformer City Engineer who spent thelatter pmt of his life studying the Hohokam inigationsystem. He named Pueblo Grande after its mostprominent featme, aplatfOim mound, one of thelargest of more than two dozen such structw'es builtby the Hohokam in the Salt River Valley, Along listof famous anthropologists and archaeologists havevisited or reported on the site since it was recorded in1868 during the initial histOlic settlement of the valleyPueblo Grande became well-known because of itslm'ge size and its location along the Tempe-PhoenixRoad,

Adolph Bandelier, a legendmy Southwestemexplorer, painted a velY accmate watercolor map ofthe platfOim mowld, as well as several other mounds,dming his 1883 visit to Pueblo Grande. FrankHamilton Cushing, primmily known for this ethno­graphic work at Zuni, excavated a towelclike adobe

~Pueblo Grande Musewn and Cultmal Park

stl1lcture at Pueblo Grande in 1887, the first scientificarchaeological excavation in the Southwest. ThisBig House was similar to the one at Casa Grande inCoolidge. Joshua Miller, Directorof the A.!izona InsaneAsylum and President of the A.!izona AntiqumianAssociation, excavated a tunnel into the side of theplatfOlm mound in 1901 to detetmine its function.Jesse Walter Fewkes, working for the SmithsonianIn~titution, visited the site in 1907 and made anumber of obselvations. In 1925, Eric Schmidt of theA.!neIican Museum of Natural History conducted astratigraphic study of a trash mowld at Pueblo Grande.Schmidt, known for his later work at Persepolis,wrote the first Ph.D. dissertation in Hohokamarchaeology for Columbia University in 1928 based onhis excavation of the Pueblo Grande trash mound.

Public Programs and Scientific ResearchSchmidt's excavations were conducted only one

yem· after the site had been purchased by aptivatecitizen-Thomas A.!mstrong, Jr.-and given to theCity as agift due to concems about the destl1lctionof Pueblo Grande from agIicultw<I1 activities.A.!mstrong's gift presented the city with the problemof preselving a Hohokam ruin, a challenge met byhiIing Odd Halseth as City Archaeologist in 1929, thefirst City Archaeologist in the United States.

Odd Halseth's mission was to develop the siteinto a city museum and cultural pm·k. Between 1933and 1935, Halseth designed mld constl1lcted apueblo-style adobe museum next to the platfOlmmound. Using volunteer labor and salvaged buildingmateIials from old city projects, Halseth built themuseum with adobe blocks made at the site for a totalof only $14.95, which was used for nails! Backdirtfrom excavations Halseth had undettaken in theplatfOlm mound was used to make the adobe blocks.

In order to obtain infOlmation and exhibitmatetials for the new museum, Halseth successfullysought the assistance of fedet<I1 work programs toexcavate the site. From 1934 to 1940, m·chaeology wasconducted under the auspices of the Public WorksAdministration (PWA), the Civiliml Consetvation

Corps (CCC), and the Works Progress Administration(WPA). Julian Hayden, AlbeIt Sclu·oeder, and PaulEzell- individuals who would later become well­known for their contIibutions to Southwestemm·chaeology- supelvised the excavations. This "ReliefArchaeology" recovered thousands of attifactsthat Halseth used in museum exhibits, and exposedportions of the platfOlm mound which Halsethdeveloped as an outdoor exhibit.

The federally-sponsored m·chaeology alsogenerated hundreds of boxes of field notes andsketches, analysis sheets, mld photographs that couldbe used to produce a repOlt on the excavations.Halseth, however, considered public programs moreinlPOltant than scientific resem·ch. He focused hislimited city resources on the development andpromotion of Pueblo Grande as amuseum, inwhich he was highly successful. Consequently, theexcavations were never fully analyzed and littlewas published about Pueblo Grande.

After Halseth retired in 1960, Donald Hiserbecame City Archaeologist and Museum Director.Hiser had excavated the ballcowt nOlth of theplatfOlm mound for Halseth in the mid-1950s.AltilOugh Hiser conducted limited excavations atthe site dwing his tenure, he focused his energies on

. fwther development of the museum and pm-k. In1964, Pueblo Grande was declm·ed a National HistOlicLandmark. Hiser then prepm·ed amaster plan for thepm·k, expanded the pm-k boundmies by almost 75acres, replaced the old museum building \vith a newfacility in 1974, and studied erosion problems on theplatform mound. But when Hiser retired in 1983,the previous m·chaeological investigations at PuebloGrande remained unreported.

Pueblo Grande Research and PublicationDavid Doyel succeeded Hiser as the City

Archaeologist. Public programs continued to beemphasized at Pueblo Grande, but the publication ofm·chaeological research took on new inlpOltance.In 1989, Doyel initiated a major study of them·chaeological records on file in the Pueblo Grande

~Pueblo Grande Musewn and CuJtw<I1 Park

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~ Figure 1. Adolph Bandelier's 1883 watercolor map of the Pueblo Grande Platform Mound(Courtesy of the Vatican).

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~ Figure 2. Recent map of the Pueblo Grande Platform Mound and surrounding compound(drafted by Alison Dean based on research by Christian E. Downum).

Museum. This archival study, directed by ChristianDownum and Todd Bostwick, required four years toexamine and synthesize the large quantity of dataHalseth and others had saved in the Pueblo Grandearchives. Asix-volume repOlt is being published onthe results of this study.

\ Concurrent ,with the Archival Project, amajorexcavation was undeltaken by the AJizonaDepartment of 'IfanspOltation for the easternpOltion of the Pueblo Grande site located within theHohokam Expressway conidor (State Route 143),outside the park boundalies, This excavation project,one of the largest ever conducted in the Southwest,recovered awealth of new data and applied newanalytical techniques to those data, The archaeologicalconsulting fum of Soil Systems, Inc. excavated over1,500 archaeological features, representing about25 percent of the site. Art eight-volume r~pOlt willpresent their findings.

Current Perspectives on Pueblo Grande\

Together, the results of the Hohokam ExpresswayProject and the AJ'chival Project have created aRenaissance ill our knowledge about the PuebloGrande Hohokam. Analysis and interpretation for thetwo projects is not yet complete, but abJief sketchof our CWTent understanding of Pueblo Grande canbe presented. . \

Pueblo Grande appears to have lJeen settledsometime before AD. 500, perhaps related to anearly canal system which the Hohokam built at thesouthem edge of the site in the area called Park ofthe Four Waters. By about AD. 750, Pueblo Grandehad grown into a sizable village containing domesticpithouses, cemetelies, trash mounds and possibly aballcowt The Pueblo Grande canal system had beenexpanded considerably by this t,ime, and inigatedapproximately 20,000 acres of fannland. In theSedentaly Peliod (AD. 900-1150), asmall circularplatform mound may have been built at the site.

Dw'ing the Classic Period (ca. 1150-1450), thelarge platform mound was initially constmcted

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and expanded on several occasions. This moundapparently was once two smaller mounds that becamea single mound as each was expanded in size.The latest manifestation of the platfOlm mound isapproximately the size of amodern-day football field.Wood charcoal from the platfOlm mound has beenrecently dated from AD. 1140 to 1350 +/- 60.Coursed-adobe houses arranged in at least 20 apart­ment-like compounds were built, replacing many ofthe previously occupied pithouses. The tower-like"Big House" stmcture excavated by Cushing in 1887likely was built at this tiIne. Fwthelmore, severallarge inigation canals were constmcted in the Park ofFour Waters. One of these canals was over 2metersdeep, 10 meters wide, and 7miles long. Another canalwas as much as 15 miles in length, an impressiveengineering feat consideJing the canals were dug byhand with digging sticks, stone tools, and baskets(other than the dog, the Hohokam had no dOJ.llesticat­ed animals to perfOlm labmious tasks).

The population of Pueblo Grande probablyreached its peak in the Classic PeJiad, with as manyas 1000 people living in the village. Studies of thebwials excavated for the Hohokam ExpresswayProject indicate that the population was suffel'ingfrom malnutJition, despite their utilization of allavailable resources, including the intensive halvestingof fish from the Salt River and local irrigation callals.

Large floods recorded for the Salt River in AD.1358 and 1380-1382 probably contJibuted to thecollapse and/or restmctw'ing of Hohokam Society atPueblo Grande and elsewhere during the 1400s. Pimaoral traditions speak of how their hero, Elder Brother,lead a revolt that overtlu'ew the evil chiefs who mledthe Hohokam platfOlm mound villages. Pueblo Grandeis specifically mentioned as one of the last villagesdefeated in battle, with one account calling the chiefof Pueblo Grande Soft Feathers Rolling. Anotheraccount recorded by Julian Hayden in 1935 states thatthe chief of Pueblo Grande was named Hua'm a nui,a Pima word meaning Yellow Buzzard. Thus,according to Pima legend, more than 1000 years ofoccupation at Pueblo Grande came to an abmpt end.

~Pueblo Grallde Musewn and CultUl'al Park

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The Significance of Pueblo GrandePueblo Grande has a long and glOlious past. This

prehistoric site is significant for the position it onceheld in the Hohokam world. Located at the heaclgatesto a major canal system, it controlled the water for alarge portion of the north side of the Salt River Valley.Pueblo Grande's platfOlm mound was possibly thelargest stmcture of its type built by the Hohokam, areflection of the site's administrative and ceremonialimportance. The significance of Pueblo Grande is alsocommemorated in the stOlies of the Pima J!e0ple, ,partially recounted above. In addition, Pueblo Grandeis significant for its prominence in the history ofHohokam archaeology, with a roster of pioneelingscholars having worked at the site. Finally, PuebloGrande is significant as an endUl1ng link to prehistOlicAmerican Indian culture. With fewer and fewerHohokam sites remaining due to continuing develop­ment of the Phoenix Metropolitan area, PuebloGrande takes on even more importance as bothsubstance and symbol of the prehistOlic past. PuebloGrande is an irreplaceable part of the diverse culturalhelitage of the Salt River Valley, the preservation andinterpretation of which can be shared and celebratedby all citizens.

Todd W. BostwickCity Archaeologist

Janumy 1994

Recorrunended ReadingDownum, Cluistian E. and Todd W. Bostwick (editors)

1993 Archaeology of the Pueblo GrandePlatform Mound and SurroundingFeatures, Volume 1: Introduction to theArchival Project and History ofArchaeological Research. Pueblo GrandeMuseum Antlu'OPological Papers No.1,Phoenix.

Doyel, David E. (editor)1987 The Hohokam Village. Site Structure and

Organization. Southwestern and RockyMountain Division of the AmelicanAssociation for the Advancement ofScience, Glenwood SPl1ngS.

Grant, David Grant (editor) .1991 The Hohokam: Ancient People of the

Desert. School of Amelican Research,Santa Fe.

Gumelman, George J. (editor)1991 Exploring the Hohokam: Prehistoric

Desert Peoples of the American Southwest.University of New Mexico Press,Albuquerque.

HaUlY, Emil W.1976 The Hohokam: Desert Farmers and

Cmfismen. University ofAlizona Press,Tucson.

Pueblo Grande Museum and Cultural Pm'k4619 East Washington StreetPhoenix, Arizona 85034-8901

(602)495-0901

Musewn hours:Monday -Satmday 9:00 am to 4:45 p.m., SWlday 1:00 pm to 4:45 p.m.

Pueblo Grande Museum and Culturat Park is asection oftheCity ofPlwenix Parks, Recreation and Libra1y Depa1tment.Pueblo Grande is aNational HistOl1l; Landmark oumed by theCity ofPlwenix.

Printing costsfor this bmchure were dOlwted by the PuebloGrande Museum Auxitia1Y.

o Printed on recycled JXlpei'

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