Hohokam Pima, also known as Snaketown is the archetypical preclassic period and preeminent community centered within the core of the Hohokam culture area. Excavations conducted in the 1930′s and 1960′s reveal the site to have been inhabited between 300 BCE to 1050 CE. This community was the center of the culture and the production of the distinctive Hohokam Buff Ware. After excavations were complete, the site was covered with earth with nothing visible above ground.

Hohokam Pima boasted of two ball courts, numerous trash mounds, a ceremonial mound, a large central plaza, several large community houses, hundreds of residential pithouses, and most likely was the home to several thousand people.

After Hohokam Pima was abandoned, several minor settlement were founded in the vicinity which were occupied until the early 1300′s.

Hokokam Pima is located near Santan, Arizona and totally within the Gila River Indian Reservation, who have decided not to open this extremely sensitive site to the public.

The site was further protected by declaring it Hohokam Pima National Monument in 1972, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. If you search Hohokam Pima National Monument, Chandler, AZ on google maps, you will find where it has been added to google maps. However, there is absolutely nothing there but desert sand.

Somewhere, I found that there is a visitors center for the National Monument site located on Goodyear Road not far from IH 10 south of Phoenix, Arizona. However, I could not find it after driving the entire length of the road.

However, the museum at the nearby Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, in Coolidge, Arizona, contains artifacts from the Snaketown ruins.

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1176 feet

Basin and Range Region

Sonoran Desert Ecoregion

The Hohokam were farmers, who grew beans, squash, tobacco, cotton and corn, despite the fact that they lived in an area with extremely dry and sandy soil. There is also rugged volcanic mountains and slow running rivers in the area. The Hohokam made the sandy soil fertile by channeling water from the local river through a series of man-made canals. Woven mat dams were used to channel river water into the canals. The canals were generally shallow and wide, reaching up to ten miles in length.

Most of the population lived in pit houses, carefully dug rectangular depressions in the earth with branch and mud adobe walls supported by log sized corner posts. These pit houses were similar to those constructed by the neighboring Mogollon pueblo people, but were larger in size and made with a more shallow depression.

Gila River

Gila River Indian Reservation