ARIZONA SACRIFICES HER PREHISTORIC CANALS' 



I!y NEIL AI. jUDD, 



tuntlnr, Piz'isii'ii oj .Imcricaii . Irclirdlof/y, I ■ S. National Miiseiiin 



V\ iiat now remains of the justly famous |)rehistoric canals of the 

 Salt and (iila river valleys, Arizona? To answer that (|uestion for the 

 Bureau of American T^thnolo^y I paid a hasty visit to the areas in 

 (juestion in niid-Se])temher, 1929. 



Most of us are prone to forget that what formerly comprised the 

 the most extensive irrigation ])rojects in the Americas, if not. indeed, 

 in the whole world, were undertaken by primitive farmers of south- 

 central Arizf)na. Xo where else, so far as I am aware, had similar 

 operations on so vast a scale been attem])ted ] trior to the ]iresent era 

 of steam shovels and drag-line dredges 



In 1893 ^Ii'- Frederick \V. Hodge, formerly of the Smithsonian 

 Institution and a member of the Hemenway Archaeological Expedi- 

 tions of 1886-8, wrote: ". . . . the ])rincipal canals constructed and 

 used by the ancient inhabitants of the Salado valley controlled the 

 irrigation of at least 250.000 acres .... at least 150 miles of ancient 

 main irrigating ditches may readily be traced, some of which meander 

 southward from the river a distance of 14 miles." ' 



Less trustworthy observers have even doubled the above figures ; on 

 the basis of the acreage supposedly- cultivated, have estimated a pre- 

 historic population as high as 200,000. Now the value of such esti- 

 mates varies directly wdth the experience and qualifications of the indi- 

 vidual reporter. Numerous factors must be taken into consideration. 

 Not every passerby can view the divers works of prehistoric man with 

 the calm impartiality of the trained archeologist. For my own part, I 

 have no first hand opinion to express as to the original number and 

 extent of Arizona's ancient canals. They were mostly gone when I 

 went to see them. And most of the references pertaining to them do 

 raise doubts of one sort or another. 



But let us assume that Mr. Hodge is substantially correct. One 

 hundred and fifty miles of canals averaging seven feet deep and thirty 



^ Photographs by courtesy of the National Geographic Society. 



" Prehistoric Irrigation in Arizona. The American Anthropologist, Vol. 6, 

 No. 3, pp. 323-330. Washington, 1893. Earlier references to this subject are 

 noted by Dr. O. A. Turney in a continuing article, " Prehistoric Irrigation," 

 published in The Arizona Historical Review, Vol. 2, 1929. 



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