The Hohokam, "that which has vanished" or "those who came before," were a peaceful people who came from Mexico and inhabited this region from approximately 300 B.C. to 1450 A.D.  They were the first farmers and were master canal builders.  They dug their irrigation canals with primitive sticks, wooden shovels and carried the dirt away in baskets. Their original dwellings were pit houses surrounding a central plaza.  A pit house started with a hole in the ground about two feet deep and as big around as the builder wanted with most about ten to twelve feet across.  Posts were set in the ground around the edges with a few in the middle.  Brush from creosote bushes was piled up around the posts and over the top.  When finished, the pit house was about four feet above ground.  Sometimes the brush was plastered over with mud. These eventually gave way to more massive buildings and the practice of surrounding their villages and plazas with walls.

The early groups of these people cremated their dead, buried the ashes and any remaining bones in urns and pits in the ground and sacrificed the possessions of the deceased.  Later, they began to bury some bodies in the ground.  By the time the first Europeans arrived in this area, the Hohokam were gone and all that remained were ruins such as the Great House found at Casa Grande National Monument.

The Hohokam were master craftsmen.  They made pottery, particularly the Casa Grande Red-on-Buff, and stone and shell carvings which they traded.  They etched the shells with fermented saguaro juice which acted like an acid on the parts of the shell that had not been coated with wax or pitch.  The Hohokam featured frogs, birds, snakes and human forms in their carvings.

Why did these people disappear?  Some oral historians say that the leaders became oppressive and the local inhabitants drove them back to the south.  Another legend says that the leader died so the people abandoned their village and split into two groups known today as the Akimel O'odham or Pima and the Tohono O'odham or Papago. Other theories suggest that a major flood destroyed their irrigation canals and forced the abandonment of the area.