The Hohokam (meaning "Vanished Ones" in the Pima language) were

centered in the Gila and Salt river valleys of present-day Arizona. Their
culture thrived from about 300 to around 1500 C.E. The Hohokam are
best know for their use of irrigation. They built a system of canals to
bring water to their fields of corn, beans, squash, tobacco, and cotton.
They were such expert engineers that the city of Phoenix, Arizona, use
virtually the identical Hohokam plan for diverting water from the Salt
River. For unknown reasons, the Hohokam abandoned their villages and
scattered into small groups. It is thought that these small groups became
the ancestors of the Pima and Tohono O'odham (Papago) peoples.

Imagine an apartment complex with 800

rooms and home to 1,200 people. Where are
you? New York? Chicago? Boston? Try
Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, in the Four
Corners region of the American Southwest.
You'd be at Pueblo Bonito, the largest
Anasazi village ever constructed, and the
biggest apartment complex in what is now
the United States, until a bigger one was
built in New York City in the late 1900's!
The Anasazi, or Ancient Puebloans, are a
people know for their elaborate villages;
some, like Pueblo Bonito, were built on the
desert floor and others, called cliff
dwellings, like those found at Mesa Verde in
southern Colorado, were constructed in the
cliff sides above the deep canyons.

The Anasazi are the most geographically extensive culture in the arid desert
West. Their culture evolved, beginning sometime about 100 B.C.E. and
disappearing after 1300 C.E. No early Southwestern culture is better know
than the Anasazi. They seemed to be particularly skilled in the use of
precious desert water. They managed to farm perhaps some of the most
inhospitable land imaginable, using subsurface irrigation, flooding, canal
irrigation, and terracing.
Today, the descendants of the Anasazi live throughout Arizona and New
Mexico and include the Hopi, Zuni, and Rio Grande Pueblo peoples.