![]() The floors of these alcoves were littered with debris from the ceiling. By the mid 1200's some Salado were settling in the surrounding foothills.Įrosion had long been at work carving out recesses in a layer of siltstone partially exposed on the hillside. As the Salado prospered, their numbers increased. Surplus food and goods were exchanged with neighboring groups, part of the trade network that reached from Colorado to Mexico to the Gulf of California. They supplemented their diet by hunting and gathering buds, leaves, and roots. Their pueblo villages dotted the riverside near irrigated fields of corn, beans, pumpkins, amaranth, and cotton. Like the Hohokam, the Salado were farmers. A new culture had apparently emerged - the Salado. Pottery styles, construction methods, settlement patterns, and other traits indicate that by 1150 the inhabitants of the basin no longer followed Hohokam traditions, or those of any other Southwestern group. Perhaps because of conditions within, perhaps because of outside influences, their way of life changed. ![]() By 850 the Hohokam were established in pithouse villages, where they lived for a few hundred years. Hohokam colonists, expanding their domain in the lower Gila and Salt river valleys (near present-day Phoenix), moved into Tonto Basin. The first permanent settlements date from the latter half of the 8th century AD. Nomadic peoples found their way into the basin as early as 7,000 years ago. Deer, rabbits, quail, and other game flourished in this setting. A few pinyon and juniper trees grew on the higher hilltops. The hillsides and mesas supported vegetation characteristic of semiarid climates: saguaro, cholla, prickly pear, agave, and jojoba. The Salt River and Tonto Creek deposited rich soil in the floodplain, nourishing thick stands of mesquite, black walnut, and sycamore. The basin's topography - a river valley surrounded by steep slopes rising some 2,000 feet - created different local environments, each with its own community of wildlife. For three centuries, they made their living from what nature provided in mountainous desert terrain. This was home to the prehistoric Salado people, named in the early 20th century after the life-giving Rio Salado, or Salt River. Prehistoric people of the Salt River - Shallow caves overlooking the Tonto Basin in southeastern Arizona shelter masonry dwellings nearly 700 years old. Tonto NAtional Monument - Apache Trail 1911
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