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Who were these Ancestral Sonoran Desert People?
No one alive now knows what name the people who built the Casa Grande called themselves centuries ago. Archeologists today use the term HOHOKAM to label the culture that flourished here from 1,500 years ago to 550 years ago.
At archeological sites, like Casa Grande Ruins, you can see similar platform mounds, ball courts, irrigation networks, and homes placed around plazas inside walled compounds. These ancient sites also share adistinctive red-on-buff pottery and carved shell jewelry.
Six tribes in today's Southwest still have histories that linkthemselves to the people who once lived here. For these tribes, Casa Grande Ruins is a sacred place. |