Hohokam Archaeology Along Phase B of the Tucson Aqueduct Central Arizona Project, Volume 3: Excavations at Water World (AZ AA:16:94) - A Rillito Phase Ballcourt Village in the Avra Valley [No. 178, Vol. 3]

Abstract

During 1986 and 1987 archaeologists from the Cultural Resource Management Division, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, excavated a Rillito phase Hohokam settlement that lay in the right-of-way for the Tucson Aqueduct Phase B, Central Arizona Project. Known as Water World (AZ AA:16:94 ASM), the site is located at the southern end of the Avra Valley on the distal end of a lower bajada of the Tucson Mountains. One hundred and forty-seven features were identified by backhoe trenching and surface stripping, including 45 structures. Fifty-nine features were investigated: 21 structures, a ballcourt, 14 pits or hearths, 21 cremations, a midden deposit, and potbreak. The features were divided into seven house groups, a ballcourt area, and a possible central plaza. The artifactual, nonartifactual, and site structure data suggest that Water World was a formalized ballcourt village that was probably occupied permanently for a relatively short period of time during the Rillito phase (A.O. 700 to 900) of the Colonial period. It is also possible that the site's population increased during the winter months, when residents subsisted on stored food supplies. Water World is located in a nonriverine environment where floodwater farming potential should have been very good. There are, however, tentative hints that agriculture may not have been as intensively practiced as expected. Furthermore, the apparent paucity of the ritual and ceremonial objects that were also expected at a ballcourt site brings into question how the site may have functioned in local Hohokam economic organization.