Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park
is on
Washington Street between 44th and 48th Streets near the
Sky Harbor International Airport. The site contains a platform mound that was
originally three stories tall and at the center of the largest irrigation
system in the New World between 600 and 1450 CE. Pueblo Grande was the starting
point for ten major canals which extended from the Salt River throughout the
present-day Phoenix metropolitan area. Additional platform mounds were located
at three-mile intervals along other canals. The site of Pueblo Grande itself
extended for one mile north of the Grand Canal. The first canals were built
between 450 and 750 CE. As the civilization grew, canals were expanded and
ballcourts were introduced between 750 and 900 CE. A small circular mound was
built between 900 and 150 CE, followed by the larger platform mound and
astronomical observatories between 1150 and 1450 CE. Estimated population of
the prehistoric civilization at the site of present-day Phoenix was 25,000 to
50,000.
Ecoregion: Sonoran Desert (World Wildlife Fund); Middle Gila/Salt River Floodplains of Sonoran Basin and Range (EPA)
Location: City of Phoenix, Arizona N33ᵒ27’
W111ᵒ59’
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