Pueblo Grande Ruin

About this property

S'edav Va'aki (formerly known as Pueblo Grande) is a pre-Columbian archaeological site and National Historic Landmark located in Phoenix, Arizona. It includes a prehistoric platform mound and irrigation canals. The City of Phoenix manages these resources through the adjacent S'edav Va'aki Museum. Long before Euroamericans moved into the area that is now Phoenix, it was home to a thriving civilization called Huhugam by the culturally affiliated O'odham and the Hohokam by archaeologists. These Ancestral Native Americans created the archaeological structures preserved at S'edav Va'aki. S'edav Va'aki features a large platform mound with retaining walls. This massive structure contains over 20,000 cubic meters (yards) of fill. There were also many dwellings, and at least three ball courts. The Hohokam archaeological culture developed some of the largest and most advanced canal systems in all of pre-Columbian North America. They were the first people to practice irrigated agriculture in the region. The remnants of their irrigation canals are part of the archaeological site at S'edav Va'aki. S'edav Va'aki was occupied from approximately AD 450 to 1450, at which time it was abandoned like many other villages throughout the Phoenix basin. The reasons why these ancestral Native Americans left their villages and irrigation systems are widely debated among archaeologists. There are many competing hypotheses that include floods, droughts, warfare, and disease. Canals were built, maintained, and abandoned by the Hohokam for almost a thousand years. The site of S'edav Va'aki is situated at the headgates of multiple large canals on the north side of the Salt River. A combination of a bend in the river and a bedrock outcropping served to push river water to the surface and made this an ideal place to divert water into the canals where it was carried for long distances. The longest Hohokam canal originated near S'edav Va'aki and carried water for over 16 miles into the area of modern-day Glendale. This likely gave S'edav Va'aki a prominent role among the many Hohokam villages on the north side of the Salt River. The remains of these canals are preserved at Pueblo Grande in an area called the Park of Four Waters. Other platform mound villages like S'edav Va'aki were built at strategic locations along the Salt River and may have been involved in controlling the flow of water to outlying villages. Complex cultural organization would have been needed to maintain all the canal systems. The site of S'edav Va'aki may have had as many as two ball courts. These were publicly accessible sites likely used for ceremonial purposes, possibly ritual ball games, and periodic markets. Ball games may have drawn large crowds to participate in market activities, facilitating regional trade. There may be cultural links between Hohokam archaeological culture ballcourts and Mesoamerican ballcourts, though, there are significant architectural differences between their design.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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