This issue covers the history and prehistory of the Santa Cruz valley. Topics include the Hohokam, Jesuit Missionaries, and the Spanish Colonial Period.
• The Archaeological Heritage of the Santa Cruz Valley – Jonathan B. Mabry, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
• Environmental Changes and Cultural Adaptations – Jonathan B. Mabry, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
• Signs of the Prelude to Agriculture – Jane Sliva, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
• Researching Early Agriculture in the Santa Cruz Valley – Jonathan B. Mabry, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
• Is It Hohokam Yet? – Henry D. Wallace, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
• Marana’s First Community Center – Paul R. Fish and Suzanne K. Fish, Arizona State Museum and James M. Bayman, University of Hawaii
• Revealing the First Church at Mission San Xavier del Bac – Bernard L. Fontana,University of Arizona
• Reconstructing the Espinosa Church – Douglas W. Gann, Center for Desert Archaeology
• Archaeology of the Jesuit Mission at Guevavi – William J. Robinson, University of Arizona
• Pueblo Trade with Santa Cruz Villages, circa 1350-1900 – Alan Ferg, Arizona State Museum
• The Tubac and Tucson Presidios – J. Homer Thiel, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
• Tasting History: Replanting Father Kino’s Fruit Trees – Jesus Garcia, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and Robert Emanuel, University of Arizona
• Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail
• Excavations at Rancho Punta de Agua – Randall H. McGuire, Binghamton University
• Stewardship of the Past – William H. Doelle, Center for Desert Archaeology
• National Heritage Areas: An Opportunity for the West – Brenda Barrett, National Park Service
• Back Sight – William H. Doelle, Center for Desert Archaeology
The Archaeological Heritage of the Santa Cruz Valley
The eroding adobe walls of Guevavi Mission are now part of Tumacacori National Historical Park.
Stretching across southern Arizona into northern Mexico, the Santa Cruz Valley is one of this continent’s longest-inhabited regions. Here are preserved traces of human occupation extending back more than 12,000 years, and remains of continuous farming and settlement over the last 4,000 years. Maize agriculture spread north through the valley about 2000 B.C. The early farming culture that flourished here for the next two millennia developed the earliest pottery, canals, and villages in southwestern North America. Centuries later, the valley was a boundary between the Hohokam culture that arose in the Phoenix Basin and the Trincheras culture centered in northern Sonora. When the first Spanish colonists and Jesuit missionaries arrived in the late seventeenth century, they encountered numerous villages of the Sobaipuri Pima (O’odham) along the riverbanks.
Issue editor: Jonathan B. Mabry
Articles include:
The Archaeological Heritage of the Santa Cruz Valley – Jonathan B. Mabry, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
Environmental Changes and Cultural Adaptations – Jonathan B. Mabry, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
Signs of the Prelude to Agriculture – Jane Sliva, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
Researching Early Agriculture in the Santa Cruz Valley – Jonathan B. Mabry, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
Is It Hohokam Yet? – Henry D. Wallace, Desert Archaeology, Inc.
Marana’s First Community Center – Paul R. Fish and Suzanne K. Fish, Arizona State Museum, and James M. Bayman, University of Hawaii
Revealing the First Church at Mission San Xavier del Bac – Bernard L. Fontana, University of Arizona
