|
|
|
|
|
Predecessors of the Hohokam > 
The Hohokam were not the first to live in the Tucson Basin. During the Ice Age, people migrated from Siberia across the Bering Strait into Alaska. These "Paleo-Indians" followed herds of big game into North America.
By 9500 B.C., bands of hunters wandered into southern Arizona, where they found a desert grassland.
The use of grinding slabs marks the beginning of the Desert Archaic tradition. In the Tucson area, the Desert Archaic tradition lasted from 7000 B.C. to about A.D. 300. During that time, small bands of people moved around the basin gathering plants. They lived primarily in the open, but probably also built temporary shelters.
Centuries before Europeans first saw the Tucson Basin, a group of Indians with a distinctive way of life had settled there. Known today as the Hohokam (ho-ho-kam), these people built villages close to streams in order to farm the region's rich bottomlands. They lived in the basin from about A.D. 300 to 1500.
|
