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Before Walled Compounds
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 aboveground buildings and walled compounds like the ruins you see before you today.
Ancient Grains, Ancient Technologies.
The corn you see here closely resembles 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. |