attached is my pictorial essay. I apologize for the late submission, i have been struggling with a wisdom teeth surgery and have had a whole lot of catching up to do. I figured i might as well submit it to at least try to get some credit pictorial essay
pictures should be in the attached version
Thanks,
Logan Tueller

Ancient American Irrigation Techniques and Their Influence on Modern American Agriculture

Water is the reason we have life on this planet. Water has several main properties which help sustain our planet and life including: cohesion, high heat capacity, universal solvent, polarity. As organisms evolved into more complex, land mobile creatures, access to water was a matter of survival or extinction. Homo sapiens developed the ability to control their access to water by recycling, redirecting and storing water in many innovating ways which allowed them to travel further and explore new places to call home. As Humans crossed over the ice bridge to North America, they settled next to coasts, rivers and lakes so they could have easy access to water. As thousands of years passed, Native Americans settled in what is now the Pacific Northwest and Southwest. I believe that I can prove that ancient human’s ability to develop technology to control water resources in America was so revolutionary that the systems used helped influence most of our modern day irrigation techniques.
Although it is probable that American Indians grew several native plants such as gourds, the first evidence of corn based agriculture in the Southwest dates as far back as 2100 BCE. Primitive corn cobs have been found all around New Mexico and Arizona from the Tucson basin in the Arizona desert. This suggests that the primitive corn they grew was adapted to being grown in hot, dry and short-season climates (Merrill). Corn reached the Southwest via an unknown route from Mexico. One theory is that the corn cultivation was carried northward from central Mexico by migrating farmers. The first cultivation of corn in the Southwest came during a climatic period when precipitation was relatively high. As corn cultivation became a more feasible means of food, communities became larger and moved away from nomadic hunter-gatherers. As these groups grew in size and moved towards a more agricultural based economy, the need to grow larger amounts of crops lead to some innovative ways to control water resources. The image to the left shows an ancient man-made water basin used to capture rainwater runoff and directed it to their small fields, thus enabling them to grow larger crops in areas of dry desert. From these rainwater collection techniques, modern Americans have derived self-sustaining houses with rain collecting systems that have the ability to supply a full house with water for showers, laundry, cooking and even enough water support a small garden. People have converted the community style water basin towards a more household friendly approach that helps make homes in more rural locations self-sufficient when it comes to water resources. As you can see, these ancient Americans had great skill in managing water resources in dry arid conditions. From rain water collection to massive canal systems spreading miles, Native Americans overcame the struggles of accessing water in the deserts in a way that is advanced even by today’s standards.
The Las Capas, near Tucson, is one of the oldest irrigation systems in North America, dating to 1200 BC. The network of canals and small fields, covers more than 100 acres which shows that a sizable community of people with advanced enough organization to complete community wide public works project (archaeology.org). The Las Capas people are considered the forerunners of the Hohokam people who were the most accomplished farmers of the Southwest. The Hohokam lived in the Gila and Salt river valleys of Arizona between the 100 AD and 1450 AD. Their society bloomed about 750 AD most likely stemming from their agricultural success. The Hohokam constructed a vast system of canals to irrigate thousands of acres of cropland from river valleys for as far as 30 km away (Doolittle). At the peak of their culture in the 14th century, the Hohokam may have numbered 40,000 people which shows how effective their irrigation systems were at passively delivering water to fields. In a very similar fashion, modern farmers rely on simple passive watering systems derived and built with similar techniques that the Las Capas people used hundreds of years ago. The arid South-West poses great issues with agriculture but with the use of the Las Capas’ techniques to build and maintain canals, the Arizona Canal system was started in May 1883, only 400 years after the Hohokam. The Arizona Canal is a massive canal system that gave water access to many communities and farmers. The Canals are 7 times larger (around 211 km) than those from the 15th century but covered similar areas and were built to support thousands of people.
From the map above, the prehistoric canals can be seen in the light blue and more modern canals are in white. The location of the canals then versus now seems to be transposed into very similar locations, some even built new canals over top of the old structures left behind from more primitive canals. The ingenuity behind both canal systems shows how the control of water resources was a mandatory need for populations to grow and survive in the drier desert conditions. As you can see, the resemblance between ancient Americans ability to control water and the more current take on how to control water stem from the same common ground dating back as far as 1200 BC. I believe that I have proved that ancient human’s ability to develop technology to control water resources in America was so revolutionary that the systems used helped influence most of our modern day irrigation techniques.

Works Cited
Doolittle, William E. “Agriculture in North America on the Eve of Contact: A Reassessment” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 82(3), 1992, p. 389
Fish, Suzanne K. “Hohokam Impacts on Sonoran Desert Environment” in Imperfect Balance: Landscape Transformations in the PreColumbian Americas ed. by David L. Lentz, New York: Columbia U Press, 2000, p.264
Merrill, William L. et al, “The Diffusion of Maize to the Southwestern United States and its Impact.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Vol. 106, No. 50 (December 15, 2009), pp. 21019-21020
Showalter, Pamela Sands. 2013. “A Thematic Mapper Analysis of the Prehistoric Hohokam Canal System, Phoenix, Arizona”. Journal of Field Archaeology. 20 (1): 77-90
“Top 10 Discoveries of 2009 – Early Irrigators – Tucson, Arizona.” http://www.archaeology.org/1001/topten/arizona.html, accessed 1 April 2016