6 results found.
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Phoenix vs. the hohokam Rapidly expanding Phoenix is gobbling up the vestiges of the Hohokam. Archeologists are striving to save as much information as possible before the bulldozers destroy the best artifacts left by this remarkable Indian civilization. This beautifully illustrated article touches on several of the precocious and puzzling features of the Hohokam Period, circa 0-1 ,400 AD. (1 ) The Hohokam apparently employed acid-etching to produce designs on shells. Acetic acid from fermented cactus juice was use to eat away portions of the shell not protected by tar. (2 ) Four-story Casa Grande, which seems to have been an astronomical observatory, required at least 600 big wooden beams, all of which had to be transported over 50 miles from sources in the mountains. (3 ) The Hohokam built an elaborate, well-engineered system of irrigation canals. (4 ) Unexplained are many flat-bottomed oval pits up to 182 feet long, 55 feet wide, and 13-18 feet deep. Some surmise they were ball courts. (5 ) Also puzzling are rectangular earthen mounds, 75 x 95 feet at the base and 12 feet high, with flat adobe-covered tops. (Adams, Daniel B.; "Last Ditch Archeology," Science 83, 4:28, December 1983.) Reference. The Hohokam canals and those built by other ancient peoples are presented in our Handbook Ancient Man. For ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 123 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf031/sf031p01.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 31: Jan-Feb 1984 Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues Last Issue Next Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects Contents Archaeology Phoenix vs. The Hohokam Astronomy Mercury's Orbit Explained Without Relativity The Sun As A Scientific Instrument What Causes the Sunspot Cycle? There Are Cold Anomalies "out There" An Orphan Superluminal Glob? Biology Cancer Even More Insidious Hearing Via Acoustic Holograms Ri Seen The Hypothesis of Formative Causation Lives! Geology The Rise of Astronomical Catastrophism Wanted: Disasters with A 26-million-year Period Thin-skinned Tectonics Early Life and Magnetism Geophysics The Min Min Light Are Nocturnal Lights Earthquake Lights? Three Anomalies in One Storm Mystery Spirals in Cereal Fields Unidentified Phenomena Psychology The Kaleidoscopic Brain At Last: Someone Who Can Predict the Future! Unclassified Reciprocal System Avoids Taint of Reductionism ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 17 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf031/index.htm
... Science Frontiers ONLINE No. 19: Jan-Feb 1982 Issue Contents Other pages Home Page Science Frontiers Online All Issues This Issue Sourcebook Project Sourcebook Subjects A PREHISTORIC TVA?The Hohokam Indians lived along the Salt River Valley, in Arizona, about 300 BC to 1450 AD. They constructed a network of irrigation canals that is certainly one of the wonders of the Ancient New World. Early investigators recorded more than 500 kilometers of major canals and 1,600 kilometers of smaller ones. (Less than 10 kilometers of these remain intact today.) One of the main canals was 3 meters deep, 11 meters wide at ground level, and 14 kilometers long. Old and recent aerial photos show traces of an incredibly complex irrigation network. W.B . Masse, the author of this article, is very impressed by the earth-moving task but even more so by the degree of social coordination and control that must have been exerted all along the Salt River Valley in building and regulating the use of this remarkable canal system. (Masse, W. Bruce; "Prehistoric Irrigation Systems in the Salt River Valley, Arizona," Science, 214:408, 1981.) Reference. Many other ancient canal projects are described in our Handbook: Ancient Man. Ordering information here . Composite map of canals near Tempe constructed from aerial photographs. From Science Frontiers #19, JAN-FEB 1982 . 1982-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 15 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf019/sf019p01.htm
... silted up by the freshets. So, they gradually raised the reservoir walls and constructed a raised canal to the stream bed. It was all very logical. The engineering of the canal is particularly impressive. The channel is 4-8 feet wide, but only 1-2 feet deep. Its steep, 15-foot-high sides are shored up with neatly aligned stones that were carried in from somewhere outside the canyon. (Anonymous; "Mystery Mound Appears to Be an Ancient Reservoir," San Francisco Chronicle, June 6, 1997. Cr. D. Phelps. Also: Anonymous; "Mysterious Mesa Verde Mound Turns Out to Be a Reservoir," Deseret News, June 10-11, 1997. Cr. S. Jones.) Comment. The closely related Hohokam Indians built miles of well-engineered canals where Phoenix now stands. See SF#19 for description. From Science Frontiers #116, MAR-APR 1998 . 1998-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 14 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf116/sf116p02.htm
... dry surface several feet above high-tide level. Radiocarbon testing finds signs of human habitation at Nan Madol as early as A.D . 500, and the megalithic construction was completed by about 1500." Besides incongruity and a certain bizarreness, Nan Madol does pose several problems: How were the huge, very heavy prismatic columns of basalt quarried and transported? Why was Nan Madol built at all? Why about 1400 AD did the inhabitants stop building their massive ocean-going canoes and begin a decline? (Hanley, Charles J., "Oregon Anthropologist Unravels Story of Lost City of Pacific," The Oregonian, February 3, 1986. Cr. D.A . Dispenza.) Comment. An associated question asks why the builders of Nan Madol, the Maya, the Hohokam, the Moundbuilders, and other cultures all decline so precipitously at about the same period? See the accompanying article on the bubonic plague. Reference. For more on Nan Madol, see our catalog Ancient Man. It is described here . A portion of "temple" at Nan Madol. It is contructed from natually occurring basalt prisms. (Courtesy Bishop Museum; also from Ancient Man). From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf045/sf045p01.htm
... finding records of the plague as it made its way into the Southwest. It is true that a less virulent disease, the sylvatic plague, transmitted by similar mechanisms, does exist in the Pacific Coast area; but the bubonic plague does seem highly localized in Arizona and New Mexico. Perhaps another explanation can be discovered in the history of the bubonic plague and the settlement of the Southwest. The plague seems to have commenced in Athens about 430 BC. More or less isolated epidemics followed, but from 1334 to 1351 the disease decimated most of the known world: Europe, Asia, and North Africa. Of course, the American Southwest was not part of the "known world" of 1334-1351. But, coincidentally (? ), this was just about the time that the Hohokam and Anasazi cultures began to decline rapidly in the Southwest. Link this observation to the purported Roman and Hebrew artifacts in the region (SF#43), and one sees the possibility that Old World travellers brought the bubonic plague to the New World well before Columbus landed! (Underwood, L. Lyle; "Bubonic Plague in the Southwest," Epigraphic Society, Occasional Publications, 14:207, 1985.) From Science Frontiers #45, MAY-JUN 1986 . 1986-2000 William R. Corliss ...
Terms matched: 1 - Score: 13 - 15 May 2017 - URL: /sf045/sf045p02.htm
