Before Walled Compounds

Robert Ciaccio artwork, part of the wayside image

Commissioned art with restricted use

About 4,100 years ago, people in southern Arizona began to grow corn. Over time more and more crops were introduced by trade. People became more settled and lived in the same place for longer periods of time.

They built earthen homes called pithouses and began to dig canals to water their fields. Some 1,500 years ago, larger villages began to appear in southern Arizona. Around 800 years ago people here began to build not only pithouses, but above-ground buildings and walled compounds like the ruins you see before you today.

Ancient Grains, Ancient Technologies

The corn you see here closely resembles the ancient maize grown in the Southwest 1,500 years ago. Baskets made harvesting crops easier. People used stone tools to grind grains. Pottery helped store and protect food and seeds from pests.

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A PDF of the wayside (16,909 KB) is available.

 

• Family Working Together

  
  

  Jacob Butler of the Salt River-Pima-Maricopa Indian Community talks about how Akimel O'odham families today are similar to families of ancient times.

  Credit / Author:

  NPS, movie outtakes, thanks to volunteer editor Jenise Cook

  Date created:

  10/14/2020

  Audio Transcript

  My name is Jacob Elliott Butler. I’m a member of the Salt River-Pima- Maricopa Indian Community, I’m Akimel O’odham. And even in the great house, you see these little hands that help stucco up the walls of the adobe. And so you know people were over there throwing mud at each other. Cause we’ve done it when we’ve made adobe walls and you know playing around in it and making jokes. And you can see that the whole families got into it because on that wall the handprints are tiny. They just had to be little kids. I can see going out in my field and working my crops and showing my daughter you know this is what a bean looks like when it’s growing. Or giving her a fresh ear of corn out of the field you know letting her try it. I can imagine somebody doing that with their child you know 2000 years ago.