Apr 27Homer Thiel takes us on a road trip to Fairbank, Arizona, a ghost town just west of Tombstone, to explore not just the historic records of the town but the Hohokam settlement established in the same place a thousand years earlier. Back in the 1980s and early 1990s, the Center…
Mar 20Archaeological work on the west side of the Santa Cruz River, to the north and south of West Congress Street, resulted in the documentation of the long history of water management in this area. What has been found? Homer Thiel provides answers. Pre-Contact ditches and canals The oldest irrigation ditch…
Mar 6Dr. James Vint, Dr. Jenny Adams, and Dr. Mark Elson discuss Desert Archaeology experiments with maize. Sometimes archaeologists conduct experiments to better understand how things were done in the distant past. Over the years, Desert Archaeology researchers have conducted three different kinds of experiments to understand how maize was grown,…
Feb 24Homer Thiel discusses the history of maize cultivation in the Tucson Basin. Desert Archaeology's work has been instrumental in documenting some of the earliest agriculture in what is now the United States, as well as tracing the ways different peoples have grown and used the grain through time here. In…
Feb 17Homer Thiel recounts what archaeological investigations in Barrio Libre revealed about the life of Henry Ransom. In 1992, Desert Archaeology conducted archaeological testing on City of Tucson Water Department property on South Osborn Avenue, located on the southern half of Historic Block 138 within the Barrio Libre south of downtown.…
Jan 30Homer Thiel winds the history machine back a few decades from the previous posts to look at life in Tucson during the time of transition from Mexican to US governance. Mexico achieved independence from Spain in 1821. In the years afterward, many changes occurred in the small fortress community of…
Jan 11Following up on last week’s post about historic Block 83 in downtown Tucson, Homer Thiel takes us on a tour of the Cactus Saloon, which served railroad passengers and local Tucsonans from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Many businesses opened on the east half of Block 83 in…
Jan 2Homer Thiel digs into the archives to tell the story of downtown Tucson's Block 83. The block is currently occupied by the MLK Apartments and the Ronstadt Transit Center, but over 100 years ago it was the site of single-family homes and saloons, hotels, restaurants, and other businesses. Desert Archaeology…
Dec 9Desert Archaeology project director Homer Thiel documents a Tohono O’odham pottery firing session. Twice in the last year, Tohono O’odham potter Dr. Reuben Naranjo has held pottery firings in the backyard of Desert Archaeology project director Homer Thiel’s house. University of Arizona professor Lisa Molomot’s students filmed the first firing…
Sep 20For the last ten years, visitors to the Mission Garden, located at the base of Sentinel Peak ("A" Mountain) have watched as fruit trees grow from saplings into tall trees, seen an acequia (canal) built and stocked with an endangered species, viewed crops being harvested and food preparation methods demonstrated.…