The prehistoric people who lived outside the Hohokam culture area also constructed irrigation systems, but none was of near the grand scale as the Hohokam irrigation systems. Canal use was either quite limited or entirely absent among the Pima Indians, who were the successors to the Hohokams Indians. A major flood in 1358 ultimately destroyed the canal networks, resulting in movement of the people. It is unknown who originated the idea of irrigation in Arizona, whether it was local technology or introduced to them from cultures in Mexico.ДЄround 1450 C.E., the Hohokam culture declined, possibly because of a combination of factors: flooding in the 1080s, hydrologic degradation in the early 1100s, and the recruitment of labor by the surrounding population. Even though the Indians of Arizona began limited farming nearly 3,000 years ago, the construction of the Hohokam irrigation systems probably did not begin until a few centuries C.E. These Hohokam Indian canal builders were given the name later by the Pima Indians. The Hohokam people inhabited the lower Salt and Gila River valleys in the Phoenix area in Arizona. The Chaco and the Hohokam systems evolved in quite different environments, having considerably different irrigation infrastructure. These systems were of the similar time period but seemed to have developed and functioned independently, with little interaction.

These two systems expanded over broad geographic areas of similar size (the Hohokam in Arizona and the Chacoans in New Mexico). The Hohokam and the Chaco regional systems stand out as two of the major prehistoric developments in the American Southwest. Canal Irrigation (North America: Chaco and Hohokam Systems)

Hohokam time period