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Irrigation in East Central California

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

Richard W. Patch
Richard W. Patch*
Affiliation:
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
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Extract

There is considerable divergence of opinion among authorities regarding the distribution of the practice of irrigation by the prehistoric Indians of the Southwest. Martin, Quimby, and Collier (1947, p. 168) write that the irrigation of the Hohokam of central and southern Arizona is the only known instance of canal irrigation in pre-Columbian North America. Thomas (1948, p. 10), however, writes that canal system irrigation was not limited to the area of the Hohokam but that “in many ravines and valleys in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Southern California are found the remains of canal systems which tapped the natural streams and carried water to the numerous small farms.” Wittfogel (Wittfogel and Goldfrank, 1943), has assembled published evidences of irrigation in the Anasazi area, north of the Hohokam, such as its practice west of the Wasatch Mountains in the Great Basin portion of Utah, described by Steward.

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 17 , Issue 1Part1 , July 1951 , pp. 50 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1951

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References

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