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Indian Mesa is a flat top hill whose sides are steep cliffs. Indian Mesa is located within the Lake Pleasant Regional Park grounds by the shores of Lake Pleasant and Agua Fria River in the Bradshaw Mountain Range. Lake Pleasant Regional Park is within the municipal boundaries of Peoria, Arizona. On top of the mesa there are ruins of a prehistoric Hohokam village which is monitored by the Arizona Site Stewards and considered an important archaeological site by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. There is a small, steep and narrow path which begins at the skirt of the hill and leads to the top of the mesa.〔(Indian Mesa Ruins )〕〔(Lake Pleasant Events )〕〔(America’s Old West Photographer )〕 ==Indian Mesa and the Hohokam village== Indian Mesa is located in the Lake Pleasant Regional Park area which has an area of 10,000 acres (40 km² or 15.6 mi²). The lake is one of the most important artificial reservoirs surrounding the Phoenix metropolitan area and is filled by the Agua Fria River.〔(Lake Pleasant Regional Park )〕 It is estimated that in the years AD 1000 to AD 1200, members of the Hohokam Indians, built a community which housed anywhere from 100 to 200 people on top of the mesa. The location presented an easily defensible position for the Hohokams of their village in the event that they were attacked by intruders.〔〔〔 According to the U.S. National Park Service, Hohokam is a Pima (O'odham) word used by archaeologists to identify a group of people who lived in the Sonoran Desert of North America. The Hohokam may have been the ancestors of the historic Akimel O'odham (Pima) and Tohono O'odham peoples in Southern Arizona.〔(Encyclopædia Britannica: "Hohokam Culture" )〕 They developed an urban society built around irrigated agriculture, watered by an elaborate canal system.〔(Arizona Hohokam History )〕 The Hohokam men spent most of their time hunting and the women tended the children and houses. The Hohokam used their houses for sleeping. They also used the houses for storage and as a defense against bad weather. They dug a posthole inside their houses and placed heavy mesquite or pine posts on them to support a roof. Among the ruins are fire pits which were used for cooking and for the making of pottery. The clay used to make pottery was gathered on the coast of the Aqua Fria River. Even though the process of pottery making was a time consuming one, the end product was a very useful one. The pots were used for serving water and if broken, the pieces were used for ornaments. The Hohokams also produced jewelry made of raw shell imported from northern Mexico which they traded.〔〔 The reason for which the Hohokam abandoned the village is unknown. There was a radical decline in the procurement and trade of raw shell from Mexico and its manufacture into jewelry. The transition from pit-houses (a primitive dwelling dug into the ground and roofed over) to pit-rooms and the introduction of spherical spindle whorls may have added to the relatively sudden and widespread abandonment or relocation of many Hohokam villages and a short-lived population decline. Archaeological evidence, such as the ones found at Indian Mesa, indicate that the Hohokams did not vanish nor did they abandon their village overnight. It is believed that the cultural collapse of the Hohokam was a process that lasted several generations and that what may have remained of their culture was passed on to their descendants, the Pima and Tohono O'odham peoples.〔(Disappearance of the Hohokams ) City of Phoenix website, retrieved December 19, 2013〕 The ruins in the mesa are some of the best-preserved pieces left behind by this Indian community.〔〔 The ruins and the mesa are now under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and monitored by the Arizona Site Stewards.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Indian Mesa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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