Most of my wanderings in the prehistoric southwest carry me to Anasazi dwellings scattered across the Four Corners region, up into Utah and Colorado, over into New Mexico, and across northern Arizona. Just because the Anasazi are my first love doesn't mean that other ancient cultures don't appeal to my heart. And so one day I found myself hurtling southward, towards the Hohokam heartland of Phoenix.
It started with a simple request from my wife, "Hey, I told them you'd be willing to chaperone the Native Cultures club down to the Heard." Indeed, I would be willing. When I saw the itenerary, however, I became very happy. Deer Valley Rock Art Center (which I hadn't been to since I was a kid) and then Pueblo Grande, a Hohokam platform mound site (which I also hadn't been to since I was a kid). Thus began the trip at 8am that Friday.
We all piled into the nice, new travel bus from the High School. 35 kids, and four adults, including our friend Beth. Ely, unfortunately, had to stay behind to catch up on that thing called "work." What could be more fun than spending 4 hours on a bus with 35 middle schoolers? Oh, I don't know...
In fact, it wasn't too bad, and the onboard DVD player helped. So, after a brief stop in Flag, we arrived at the Deer Valley Rock Art Center just in time for lunch.

There was a Great Horned Owl perched in the tree overlooking the lunch area.
Some of the Navajo students were quite disconcerted about this development. It could mean death, death to a family member, delayed death, or delayed death to a family member, depending on what their family's tradition was. Some also said it would only be bad luck if you'd seen the owl at night. I, however, hooted at the owl, and got it to move around a bit (thanks USFS training!). They probably thought I was some sort of witch, but I just like owls. After lunch, the kids scampered on down the trail, and by the time us adults had finished with the cleanup, most of them were heading back towards the bus. Beth and I still wanted to see what petroglyphs lay ahead...

Sun petroglyph
It was quite appropriate that one of the first petroglyphs we came across was a sun. It was just around noontime, and the sun was bearing directly down on the rocks, washing out the subtle differences between pecking and patination.

A boulder that's fairly representitive of the great variety of images at DVRAC.
Several kids passed us on their way back to the bus. Most told us to hurry up so they could get moving. We were going to the mall later that afternoon, and that was stop numero uno for them - forget all this cultural stuff!

This boulder, although hard to tell with the light, was covered with images of deer.
At the deer boulder, there was an interpretive ranger from the Pima tribe, telling a couple from Minnisota about all the different tribes that had ties to the site. He said, "All the tribes here in Arizona, my people, the Hopi up north, pretty much everyone has a tie to this site. You can see symbols from all the tribes except the Navajo, the Dine. They never came this far south." Oh, if only he knew we'd brought some this far south - they were the screaming horde that had thundered by him a few minutes before. He did, however, shade the boulder with his hat, so we were able to see the images.

The acacia tree makes a natural frame for the petroglyph-covered boulders of the hill.
Noon is not the best time to see the site, that's what Beth and I found out (again) as we wandered along the slope. Not that we had any choice in the timing, it depended on too many other factors. A number of metal tubes aligned towards various points on the boulders provided little help in the washed-out lighting. Finally having contented ourselves that we had seen all we could see, we headed back towards the bus and the waiting students. Next stop, Pueblo Grande.

Pueblo Grande is an ancient Hohokam platform mound compound, near downtown Phoenix and the airport. Not much of the original site remains, as signs along the trail through the ruins show.

Pinpoints show locations of former and current Hohokam structures associated with Pueblo Grande. Some site names are my own. Image from GoogleEarth.
The platform mound itself is in good condition, however, considering the fact its made of caliche and adobe, unlike the Anasazi sites of the north. The ancient residents simply took mud and river water, and slopped it all together with trash to make a surprisingly durable mound.

Reconstruction of what Pueblo Grande may have looked like in its heyday.
Ruins first, museum later seemed to be the rule of the day. So while the kids rushed along at their mad pace again (the sooner we get done, the sooner we can go to the mall!), Beth, myself, and the other adults made a slower circut of the ruins. The trail led up the mound, giving us views of the surrounding area.

This empty area once was filled with different walled-off area, all filled with trash and caliche-mud to form the foundation of the mound.
Not much was left of the rooms on top of the mound but waist-high mounds, indicating where people once lived, worked, and played. There was one room remain, however, that was particularly interesting. It was apparently a solar observation room, and during initial excavation of the site, archeologists had found the impression of a woven reed mat in the soft packed-mud floor. The mat itself was gone, but to think something as fragile as its impression was still visible - pretty cool to ponder.

Looking northwest, some of the structures that surrounded the platform are visible.
Eventually after touring the entire top of the mound, the trail led back down and headed north, past untouched mounds of rubble that may hold valuable information about the Hohokam for future archeologists. There were also a couple of reconstructed Hohokam settlements, just a few houses, basically. They were pretty interesting, because it gives you a better idea on what it must have been like to live in the Phoenix basin at that time, in those conditions. I'd like it, I think, but most people think I'm a fool.

A ball court north of the platform mound.
Pueblo Grande also had at least one (possibly two) ballcourt during its occupation. No one is quite sure what went on at the ballcourt, but the assumption is that a game similar to those played in Mesoamerica was carried on here in the southwest. Ballcourts are fairly common around platform mounds and Big Houses in the Phoenix-Tucson area, and some even crop up towards Anasazi country, such as the one at Wupatki. I've heard Hopi oral tales say that the ballcourts weren't used for playing ball games at all though, so we may be off in our interpretation of these enigmatic excavations.

Sacaton Red-on-Bluff jar at the Pueblo Grande Museum
We finally finished out our tour and headed inside to the museum. There were many interesting and attractive displays and exhibits, but one item in particular caught my eye. Figural representation in southwestern ceramics is rare - it occurs sometimes on mugs and effigy pots from Anasazi country, and quite frequently in Mimbres burial pots. The Hohokam tend to use human figures more often than their neighbors to the north, but because I mainly stay in Anasazi territory, I don't see much of it. The dancing figures on the jar captured me, and pulled me in. They remind me of how much we'll never really know about these people. They also reminded me of a petroglyph from northern Arizona, showing maybe a line of dancers, or an early kachina mask. What connections were going on in the prehistoric southwest anyway? Unanswerable questions.
Relief from the group when we finally arrived back on the bus. I announced the mall trip was canceled - that made me unpopular until I couldn't help but erupt laughing. I was satisfied with the day - two prehistoric sites in a school field trip? Who could ask for more. Now all I had to do was survive the kids in the mall and a night in a motel with them, and we'd be at the Heard Museum in the morning.

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