Ancient Canal System Uncovered Beneath Future Parking Lot

What most people don’t know, archaeologist Kathy Henderson explained to the Arizona paper The Republic, is that underneath Phoenix’s Sky Train stop on 44th Street and Washington is an ancient canal system.

According to Henderson, who serves as the principal investigator in the Tempe Office of Desert Archaeology Inc., the canals were built by the Hohokam people, who are believed to have settled the area between 400 to 500 A.D.

Their canal systems, which stretched for hundreds of miles, were built to direct water from the Salt River to their fields and were perfectly laid out on the landscape to achieve downhill drop of 1 to 2 feet per mile.

One of the largest prehistoric canals uncovered thus far, according to the Arizona Museum of Natural History, measured 15 feet deep and 45 feet wide. In all, the society is estimated to have irrigated 110,000 acres by 1300 A.D.

Still, says archaeologist Laruene Montero, the unearthing of these new canals beneath what will eventually become a parking lot, is still an exciting find.

“It was quite remarkable and for the first time, we actually uncovered a field system,” Montero told The Republic. “We’ve known the fields have been out there …This is the first time we’ve actually see them.”

The field work, Montero further explained, may only take a few weeks, but the lab work on the artifacts will likely take years.

Currently, all artifacts discovered during the first phase of the $1.58 billion Sky Train construction four years ago are under investigation and analysis, after which they will return to the Pueblo Grande Museum, located walking distance from where they were found.

Hohokam crafts people are well known for producing an wide array of stone, bone, shell and clay objects. Figurines have also been found in Hohokam villages similar to those made in Mesoamerica.

Recent studies have shown the population in the Salt River Valley rose dramatically from 1100 A.D. to 1300 A.D., which in turn likely stressed their water resources and ultimately may have caused their otherwise sudden disappearance by 1450, at which time the Hohokam evaporate from archaeological record.