The History of Tucson
Chapter 1 - Native Tucson

Archeological evidence has proven that humans have inhabited the Tucson area for as long as 12,000 years. Archeologists have uncovered several Paleoindian sites dating from up to 13,500 years ago along the nearby San Pedro River. Paleoindian cultures lived in caves and hunted large ice-age mammals such as mammoths, mastodons, and ground sloths.

A people known today as the Hohokams lived in the area of present-day Northern Mexico to Central Arizona from 450-1450 AD. Evidence of a large community was found from the area that eventually became modern downtown Tucson to “A” Mountain. The remains of a traditional Hohokam home dating from the 10th century AD, discovered by archeologists in 1954, can be seen at the rebuilt El Presidio del Tucson. These structures, known as pit houses, were large rooms dug into the ground, where the soil would provide insulation from heat during summer and cold during winter. A grouping of pit houses surrounded a rectangular plaza where daily activities took place.

The Hohokam people, sedentary farmers, were the only ancient culture in North America to build irrigation canals from nearby rivers to supply water to their crops of corn, beans, and squash. The Hohokam were using sophisticated irrigation systems along the Santa Cruz River. Canals measured up to 45 feet across and 15 feet deep and used advanced 2 engineering techniques, allowing irrigation of over 110,000 acres. This ingenuity allowed the culture to thrive in the arid environment of the Sonora Desert. The entire community worked together to plant and harvest crops, but some hunting and gathering were done to supplement the diet, especially in drought years, which usually occurred one year out of every five.

But Hohokam life wasn’t all work and no play; they made large sporting courts and played a game with balls made from natural rubber found in Mexico and traded north. By 1150, they began to build large temple mounds, including the Mesa Grande platform in Mesa, Arizona. Pottery artifacts featuring geometric designs date back to 900 AD. They also weaved cotton, and made jewelry, baskets, and weapons.

Sometime around 1450, the Hohokam people disappeared from the archeological record, but the exact cause for this is unknown. Some believe that long droughts combined with intermittent flooding destroyed many of their irrigation canals and made farming impossible, forcing them to relocate.

When Spanish explorers made their way to the Sonora desert, they encountered descendants of the Hohokam, the Pima people, called O’odham in their own language. The Pima nation covers a large swath of present-day northwestern Mexico and southern California and Arizona. The Pima, or “River People,” as they called themselves because they lived in the valleys of the Salt and Gila Rivers, still inhabit Tucson today, mostly on the Mission San Xavier Reservation.

Successful farming practices led the Pima to enjoy a more stable and communal life than many neighboring tribes. With larger communities came a stronger and more sophisticated political system, including a tribal chief elected by the chiefs of the various villages. The village chief, called a Cacique, along with a council of all adult males, directed irrigation projects and protected the village against hostile tribes.

From the time of their earliest recorded contacts with European colonizers, the Pima have been regarded as a friendly people. In his memoirs, Father Eusebio Kino, a Jesuit missionary, writes they “they received us with all love,” and calls them friendly, docile, and domesticated people at his very first meeting with them.