52 THE CLIMATIC FACTOR AS ILLUSTRATED IN ARID AMERICA. 



Hohokam, for the houses and streets of the present city cover a large area. Just outside 

 the city, however, not only to the south nearly across the Santa Cruz from the old mission, 

 but also to the north along the terrace near the Southern Pacific Railroad, and to the 

 west near the Desert Laboratory and the Hospital, pottery and other evidences of early 

 man are found in abundance, while on Tumamoc Hill above the Laboratory the walls of 

 a fort may be seen. Evidently many Hohokam hved at Tucson and cultivated the 2,000 

 acres or more which are there available for irrigation. A third large tract of modern 

 cultivation is found along the Rillito, a stream which flows at the southwestern base of the 

 Santa Catalina Mountains and joins the Santa Cruz about 8 miles below Tucson. Here 

 nearly 2,000 acres are now used. In the past the Hohokam evidently made use of the 

 same land, for traces of villages are found at Agua Caliente, Tanke ^'erde, and in the angle 

 between the Rillito and Pantano washes, a mile southeast of Fort Lowell. Other traces 

 of former occupation are found along the terraces of the Rillito, so that there can be little 

 question that every available bit of land was cultivated. 



The three areas mentioned above, namely, the San Xavier Reservation, the vicinity of 

 Tucson, and the RilUto Valley, are the only places where water is now abundant. They 

 include about 5,500 of the total 6,000 acres availal^le for cultivation. The remaining 500, 

 more or less, are scattered here and there in small insignificant patches. Thousands of 

 acres of most fertile soil lie along the lower Santa Cruz below Tucson and in many other 

 places, but can not be cultivated for lack of water. 



Let us examine some of the ruins in the region where cultivation is now largely or 

 wholly lacking. Seven miles northwest of Tucson the little railroad section house of 

 Jaynes lies on the edge of the alluvial flats on the northeast side of the alluvial plain of the 

 Santa Cruz. From a point a mile southeast of the station, that is, toward Tucson, pottery 

 and stone implements are strewn thickly not merely as far as Jaynes, but for nearly half a 

 mile beyond. These evidences of an ancient village lie upon a gravelly tract which now 

 rises perhaps 10 feet above the main alluvial plain. The width is only about a quarter of 

 a mile in most places, for the village was evidently spread out along the length of the 

 stream. Everywhere the pottery is so thick that one walks on it at almost every step. 

 The area where pottery is thick amounts to at least 200 acres, while, downstream, potsherds 

 are less abundantly strewn for about 2 miles to a point beyond the Nine Mile Water Hole, 

 near the mouth of the Rillito. In most places the traces of the ancient village are limited 

 to the southwest side of the railroad toward the Santa Cruz. Close to Jaynes, however, 

 they cross over and spread out upon a higher terrace. Here they cover the gravel "mesa," 

 as the bahadas are locally called, and may be seen in abundance along the direct road from 

 Tucson to RilUto just west of the Flowing Wells Ranch, the lowest point to which a 

 perennial water supply now comes. This portion of the Jaynes village occupied the 

 triangular point between the Santa Cruz and Rillito bottom lands and had an area of at 

 least another hundred acres, while in the outskirts scattered fragments indicate a less 

 dense population, extending far on every side. In this village and in the adjacent main 

 area of the Jaynes ruins the pottery is so thick and extends to such a depth in the ground 

 that we can scarcely doubt that the villages were densely populated for a long time. 



The number of people contained in the original villages can not be estimated with any 

 exactitude. An approximation may be made from comparison with the ruins at Sabino 

 Canyon, a tributary of the Rillito. Where the Sabino brook flows southward out of the 

 Santa Catalina Mountains it has deposited a broad fan of gravel, in which it has now cut a 

 wide flood-plain bordered by a terrace. On the gravel terrace east of the stream, a Hoho- 

 kam village was located. To-day the only inhabitants of the immediate vicimty are 

 two or three Mexican ranchers who use all the available water to irrigate a score or more 

 acres of bottom land. In the past the village appears to have been quite populous. In 

 the triangle between Sabino and Bear Canyon "Washes" an area of 35 acres is covered with 



