Hohokam build ball courts in the Sonoran Desert

1200

In the river valleys of what is now Arizona, Hohokam communities shaped earthen ball courts and laid miles of irrigation ditches across the hardpan. Their pottery, etched with acid from saguaro fruit, traveled along trade paths that reached Mesoamerica. Shell ornaments from the Gulf of California and copper bells from western Mexico attest to the depth of their exchange networks.