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The occurrence of nonlocal objects, raw materials, and ideas in the southwestern United States (U.S. SW) has long been recognized as evidence of interaction between prehispanic peoples of this region and those of greater Mesoamerica. Although many archaeologists have analyzed the directionality and potential means by which these objects and concepts moved across the landscape, few have assessed the degree to which Mesoamerican practices and traditional assemblages remained intact as the artifacts and ideas moved farther from their places of origin. The current study analyzes the distribution and deposition of blue-green stone mosaics, a craft technology that was well established in Mesoamerica by the Late Preclassic period (300 BC-AD 250) and spread to the U.S. SW by the start of the Hohokam Pioneer period (AD 475). We assess the spatial distribution, contextual deposition, and morphology of mosaics at sites within Hohokam Canal System 2, located in the Phoenix Basin of Arizona. We use these data to infer mosaics' social value and function within Hohokam social structure. Analyses suggest that, although the technology of mosaic making may have originated in Mesoamerica, the contexts and ways in which mosaics were used in the Hohokam regional system were decidedly Hohokam. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The organization of ceramic production and distribution among the ancient Hohokam of the Phoenix basin, Arizona, has been documented in recent years with much detail. Based on diverse temper and clay compositions, the provenance of individual ceramics is routinely determined with considerable precision. One exception is phyllite-tempered pottery, which was made in one corner of the basin but also across a broad upland zone adjacent to the north. The phyllite-tempered pottery from different production sources cannot be distinguished on the basis of their temper type. As shown with assays with an electron microprobe, however, both the temper and clay fractions are chemically diverse and geographically distinct, allowing many of the phyllite-tempered wares to be sourced. Among the phyllite-tempered ceramics consumed in the Phoenix basin, some are shown to have been made locally, but, surprisingly, large numbers were imported from the northern uplands. Their numbers support the idea that the connection between the Phoenix basin and the northern uplands was a prominent component of the Hohokam regional economy despite the great difference between them in settlement size and density. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: The use of ochre is a defining characteristic of populations living in the Sonoran Desert of the American Southwest. Red pigments and paints were used for craft production, bodily adornment, rock art, and in mortuary contexts. Hematite and other iron-oxides are common components of this pigment that frequently appear in the archaeological record in a variety of forms and in various stages of production. Beyond this, very little is known about these materials. This paper describes the collection of potential geological sources of ochre in the Phoenix Basin and presents a methodology for the identification of processed paints. Geological sources samples are characterized using instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and compared to raw materials recovered archaeologically from the Gila River Indian Community reservation. This preliminary study indicates that iron-oxide sources can be distinguished from each other and that artifacts can be matched to these sources, revealing local procurement along the Gila River by Hohokam and O’odham artisans and continuity in use of one source from the prehistoric period to the present. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recent advancements in determining the production sources of prehistoric Hohokam pottery from the Phoenix basin, Arizona, have shown that ceramic manufacture was highly concentrated during the Sedentary period (ca. AD 950- 1100). For example, nearly all of the bowls and small jars consumed in the lower Salt River valley were decorated red-on-buffpots importedfrom the middle Gila River valley to the south. An analysis of the sand temper in the buff wares showed that many, if not most, of these red-painted vessels were made in one locality along the Gila River, thereby supporting the idea that a reliable and efficient mechanism for commodity exchange was extant at that time, possibly in the form of periodic marketplaces associated with ritual baligames. The pottery results imply a level of dependence on bailgame-related transactions that had not been recognized before, indicating their central importance to the Hohokam Sedentary period economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hohokam villages at the foot of South Mountain in Phoenix, Arizona, specialized in the production of large jars for market exchange during the pre-Classic period. In the Classic period these communities specialized in the manufacture of polished red ware bowls and jars. Excavations at Las Canopas, a large Hohokam village in Phoenix occupied from the late Pioneer period through the Classic period, have uncovered evidence of a kiln. The evidence consists of structural form, size, the presence of a substantial oxidation ring and copious ashy refuse, location on the fringe of the village, and spatially associated hand tools used for pottery manufacture. The kiln may have been built as the direct result of increased demand for pottery production at Las Canopas for market exchange in the pre-Classic period, and may have been a technological response to demand not just for more vessels but also the larger vessels used for exchange. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flotation-processed fill from an inverted bowl on the floor of a late Sedentary period house floor (A.D. 1020-1150, calibrated 1-sigma range C-14 date) at the Las Canopas site on the Salt River in Phoenix, Arizona, yielded approximately 1,500 charred amaranth seeds along with domesticated maize (Zea mays ssp. mays) kernels, tepary beans (Phaseolus acutifolius), and cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) seeds. The amaranth seeds are morphologically different from wild types and have the properties of a domesticated species as determined from seed coat (testa) measurements. We conclude that both pale and dark-seeded domesticated amaranth seeds were present in the bowl, having seed coat thicknesses of 3.7-6.1 microns (pale) and 8.3-14.2 microns (dark), respectively. We also review the Hohokam literature and discuss concentrations of amaranth from possible storage contexts and from additional sites where analysts suggested that specimens represent domesticates. The context and anatomical characteristics of the Las Canopas amaranth support the inference that it was produced as a crop and contributed to the diets of late Sedentary period farmers in the Phoenix Basin. More studies of this type, combined with additional baseline research needed to understand seed characteristics of all native amaranth species, can lead to better informed assessments of the significance of cultigen amaranth for Sonoran Desert farmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery was analyzed to determine its feasibility for mapping linear, prehistoric cultural features in a semiarid environment. The Hohokam Canal system along the Salt River in the vicinity of Phoenix, Arizona, was used as a test site because of 1) the considerable lengths of its primary branches; 2) the substantial widths of some canals; and 3) extensive prior mapping that provided a means by which to measure the success of the experiment. Results suggest that TM imagery can serve as a valuable addition to conventional means of prehistoric canal identification and mapping. Despite the in distinct nature of the canals as they currently exist in Phoenix, the satellite imagery detected portions of previously known major branches and provided evidence for the possible extension of some segments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Anthropogenic soils produced by centuries of Hohokam (450–1450 CE) canal irrigation underlie the city of Phoenix. • Age and origin of a hypothesized buried anthropogenic soil tested with morphological, micromorphological, pollen, and chronometric analyses. • Results indicate that Indigenous irrigation agriculture produced a 70+ cm cumulic soil in ∼500 years in our study area. • Evidence suggests application of organic materials to help maintain soil productivity. • We hypothesize that farming ceased in our study area ∼1200 CE due to reduced soil quality. Over 1000 years of irrigation agriculture by the Hohokam (450–1450 CE) left an indelible mark on soils of the lower Salt River Valley in Arizona. Defining the nature, extent, and formation of these anthropogenic soils, named Salt River Adobe during the valley's first soil survey, is important for understanding human impacts to the environment and agricultural history of arid lands. Towards that objective, we describe an undisturbed, buried example of the Salt River Adobe from the Salt River floodplain and present evidence for its anthrogenesis based on archaeological context, age, physicochemical properties, micromorphology, and pollen content. We determined that the Salt River Adobe at this location represents approximately 500 years of irrigation sedimentation and pedogenesis resulting in a 70+ cm thick cumulic soil. Cessation of irrigation within the project area occurred in the 1200s CE at a time of peak Hohokam population. Our evidence suggests fairly continuous multi-century irrigation farming by the Hohokam at one location with soil productivity maintained by irrigation sedimentation and possible fertilization. We hypothesize that cessation of farming at this location during a time of high food-demand was due in part to gradually reduced soil permeability and tilth. More research is needed to better understand the geographic extent and genesis of Salt River Adobe and the role it played in Hohokam farming and cultural history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increased nitrogen (N) deposition threatens global biodiversity, but its effects in arid urban ecosystems are not well studied. In addition to altered N availability, urban environments also experience increases in other pollutants, decreased population connectivity, and altered biotic interactions, which can further impact biodiversity. In deserts, annual plant communities make up most of the plant diversity, support wildlife, and contribute to nutrient cycling and ecosystem processes. Functional trade‐offs allowing coexistence of a diversity of annual plant species are well established, but maintenance of diversity in urban conditions and with increased availability of limiting nutrients has not been explored. We conducted a 13‐yr N and phosphorus (P) addition experiment in Sonoran Desert preserves in and around Phoenix, Arizona, USA to test how nutrient availability interacts with growing season precipitation, urban location, and microhabitat to affect winter annual plant diversity. Using structural equation modeling and generalized linear mixed modeling, we found that annual plant taxonomic diversity was significantly reduced in N‐enriched and urban plots. Water availability in both current and previous growing seasons impacted annual plant diversity, with significant interaction effects showing increased diversity in wetter years and greater responsiveness of the community to water following a wet year. However, there were no significant interactions between N enrichment and water availability, urban location, or microhabitat. Lowered diversity in urban preserves may be partly attributable to increased urban N deposition. Changes in biodiversity of showy species like annual wildflowers in urban preserves can have important implications for connections between urban residents and nature, and reduced diversity and community restructuring with N enrichment represents a challenge for future preservation of aridland biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Colonial difference is a story of national infrastructures. To understand how colonialism works across Indigenous lands, we need to appreciate the physical, legal, and political factors involved in the building and expanding of national infrastructures in different historical contexts; infrastructures that arrive in some places while denied in others. Using archival documents, this article accounts for the colonial politics necessary to bring Colorado River water into Phoenix and Tucson. It highlights how the following moments worked to enlarge Arizona's population and power while denying Diné water claims: the 1922 Colorado Compact, Arizona's 1960s campaign for the Central Arizona Project, and recent Indian water settlements between Arizona and Navajo Nation. The infrastructures that emerged from these events formed a coal–energy–water nexus reliant on Navajo coal while constructing Arizona's water network. In sum, these projects served as colonial beachheads—temporal encroachments on Indigenous lands and livelihoods that augment material and political difference over time and exacerbate inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the twentieth-century water infrastructure of Phoenix, Arizona. An extensive network of canals transformed the desert into farmland, then farmland into suburban sprawl. This infrastructure can be studied as a vital force, one whose arrival so contradicted preexisting geology and ecology that it produced unexpected effects and admitted uninvited visitors. Historical documentation of the canals' transition from agricultural to suburban infrastructure reveals complex human-nature interactions mediated by engineered waters. This brief account argues for the potential of infrastructural history as a form of vibrant postnatural history, one which challenges the notion of genius loci on sites where terrestrial definitions of region have been ruptured. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several North American metropolitan areas including Albuquerque, El Paso and Seattle in the U.S., and the Canadian urban areas of Montreal and Vancouver, are characterized by Indian reservations situated either within or on the outskirts of these cities. This type of Indian reservation or reserve within metropolitan areas has been the subject of limited geographical research, and is nowhere as manifest as in Metro-Phoenix. Three reservations obstruct the otherwise unlimited growth of Arizona's capital. This phenomenon is most striking in the eastern regions of Phoenix where, until the end of the 1980s, the almost exclusively rural, agrarian Salt River Indian Reservation formed a physical and cultural barrier to urban development, preventing metropolitan sprawl beyond a clearly marked boundary. Continued urban pressures have led to changing land uses, effectively hollowing out this embankment or barrier, which has caused a profound change in the reservation. Both the Salt River and Gila River Indian reservations maintain large tracts of irrigated agricultural land, but the transformation that converted farms to suburbs off the reservation is now changing the reservation itself. In fact, this change actually began more than a hundred years ago with the Anglo-American colonization of what is today Arizona's central region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities can transform ecosystems in multiple ways, through modification of land use and land cover and through exposure to altered physical, chemical, and biological conditions characteristic of urban environments. We compared the multiple impacts of urbanization on microbial carbon (C) and nutrient cycling in ecosystems across Phoenix, Arizona, one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the USA. Land-use/land-cover change from desert to managed ecosystems altered soil microbial functioning, primarily through changes in organic matter supply. Although residential xeriscapes often feature native plants and patchy structure like deserts, spatial heterogeneity in soil biogeochemical cycling was not tightly linked to plant canopies. Grassy lawns exhibited higher nitrogen (N) and phosphorus demand by microorganisms than other landscape types, suggesting that high C quality may effectively sequester these nutrients during periods between fertilization events. Soils in native desert remnants exposed to the urban environment had higher organic matter content, but supported lower activities of extracellular peroxidase enzymes compared to outlying deserts. Experimental N enrichment of desert systems decreased peroxidase activities to a similar extent, suggesting that protected desert remnants within the city are receiving elevated N loads that are altering biogeochemical functioning. Although some microbial processes were spatially homogenized in urban desert remnants, resource islands associated with plants remain the dominant organizing factor for most soil properties. The extent to which native desert preserves within the city functionally resemble managed xeriscapes and lawns suggests that these remnant ecosystems are being ‘domesticated’ by exposure to the urban environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. The controversial expansion of a hazardous waste facility in a poor, minority neighborhood in Phoenix illustrates the unanticipated consequences of siting hazardous facilities in vulnerable communities, and the need to recognize neighborhood health/safety issues such as drug-related crime as environmental justice struggles. Methods. Qualitative methods include participant observation, document analysis, Census data, GIS mapping, and interviews. Results. South Central Phoenix's history reveals a disproportionate share of poverty, pollution, and drug crimes. Most commercial hazardous waste facilities in Phoenix were sited in minority areas. Residents contended that the siting, permitting process, and expansion of the facility and the drug crimes that later occurred there were all due to environmental racism. Conclusions. The expansion of the facility exacerbated environmental injustice in Phoenix through distributional and participative injustice, and was criminogenic. The dual impact on the community of hazardous waste and drug crime argues for a more holistic understanding of environmental justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Phoenix's evolution into one of the dominant metropolitan centers of the American Southwest was the combination of early federal policies, local initiatives, and, most important, the actions of several key business figures. Between 1885 and 1920, W. J. Murphy, Moses Sherman, Dwight Heard, and Benjamin Fowler used their connections to outside investors and federal politicians to advance the small city's promise and to individually profit from its growth. Political initiatives, such as establishing a reform-style government, commissioning a "City Beautiful" plan, and creating a plan commission, were outcomes of the city's early development that flowed directly from the actions of several business leaders. The case of Phoenix underscores how planning reflected the interests of a narrow segment of the political and economic interests of the city. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the dimensions of rapid urbanization in the Phoenix Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) over the past thirty years with respect to land use change. We devote primary attention to developing an understanding of what land transformations took place, the extent to which they occurred, and where they occurred. Our findings indicate that 32 percent of the Phoenix SMSA changed between 1970 and 2000. More than half of the overall change was from agriculture to some form of urban land use, and although a large percentage of the region remains open desert the parcels of desert are increasingly fragmented. This has significant implications for urban ecology and biodiversity. The growth indicates that rather than a pattern that reflects the agglomeration effects of a polycentric metropolis, the central business district of the City of Phoenix dominates the region. This has implications with respect to employment patterns, traffic congestion, and urban air quality and climate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The postcard is useful in understanding a city's public image as well as the evolving notions of what constitutes the picturesque in different locations. Changes in the image of Phoenix, Arizona were often driven by the business elite and their efforts to market investment opportunities and profit from development. Early descriptions of Phoenix likened it to a midwestern city, while post-war messages concentrated on its exotic, tropical qualities. Interestingly, neither description accurately conveys the city's desert landscape. This study analyzed the content of 357 postcard images of Phoenix obtained from a primary postcard archive, to determine whether images prior to WWII were significantly different from images after WWII. Our findings supported our hypothesis that the image of Phoenix shifted toward a tropical oasis. The majority of postcards from the two time periods contained images indistinguishable from the Midwest or California (73% and 61%, respectively). Reasons for the lack of authentic Phoenix or distinctive southwestern images were identified. A comparison between the city's history and the postcard images illustrated how the images selectively presented the community's evolving character. This "editing" process in our postcards extended beyond minor visual obstructions and omitted important utility and transportation infrastructure, evidence of technological advancements, and cultural diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population growth in the Phoenix metropolitan region is converting agricultural landscapes into suburban sprawl at one of the most rapid rates in the United States, yet little has been done to protect this resource, which has been vital to the development of this region's sense of place as a land of economic opportunity. This paper addresses the status of the region's land-use planning options for agricultural landscape preservation on private land. In order to reveal the value of the region's landscape character, the authors first present a typology of the four major agricultural landscapes remaining on private land, and the diverse farming traditions of some of the region's major ethnic and religious groups that created these landscapes are described. Next, the challenges and opportunities facing the preservation of these four remaining landscapes are discussed in relation to changing land attitudes and values in Arizona. Existing land-use planning and policy options for protection of the four remaining landscapes at the federal, state, and local levels are discussed, and examples of the integration of agricultural landscapes into the physical design of suburban development are provided. Finally, for the benefit of legislators, policymakers, and planners, the authors make recommendations for the development of a landscape-based policy framework and tools for the protection of agricultural landscapes in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In-stream gravel mining, massive bridge piers, and channelization have all contributed to the geomorphic instability of the Lower Salt River channel in Arizona. Dam closure, changing dam operating rules, and the frequent modification of the channel bed have decreased our ability to predict the Salt River hydrology. Engineering practice has adapted to this situation and to a public that is increasingly intolerant of service disruptions by constructing larger bridges and extending levees. Building these larger structures may be counterproductive; future construction should not constrict the channel and should re-establish a braided river to decrease the energy available to the system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]