Ancient Civilizations

The southwest of the United States is dotted with many remnants of ancient civilizations.  I've shown you Montezuma's Castle and Tuzigoot before.  Today I'm showing you another National Monument called Casa Grande.  You can probably figure out that the name translates to "great house".

The site has preserved what is left of what is called an irrigation community, a place where ancient peoples lived and worked along a network of canals that diverted water from streams to fields where crops could be grown.  The great house was completed around the year 1150 and was at one time four stories tall.

In addition to what remains of the great house, there are also the remains of walls of other structures situated around a central plaza area.

There is even evidence of a large ball court where games were played..  The walls above appear to be small living spaces.

The museum at the site has many artifacts that have been recovered around this settlement.  This large "olla" or pottery vessel was used for water and food storage.  It is amazing that it was unearthed completely in tact.

The museum also had a small display of what the inside of one of the smaller dwellings might have looked like.

The structure over the top of the "great house" was built to protect what remains of this ancient building from the relentless desert sun and wind and rain.

There is a large mound within the heart of the city of Mesa that is thought to be another large multi-storied structure like this one.   That mound just looks like a hill of dirt but, it is being preserved by archeologists for future excavation.  It is thought that as archeological techniques improve, scientists will be able to learn more from these sites than they have in the past.  So that site is awaiting future exploration.