Overview

Los Morteros is the site of an ancient Hohokam village believed to have been occupied from 850 to 1300 AD. A vast area encompassing 210.0 acres, it is located in Marana, Arizona, west of interstate 10 and near the present-day intersections of North Silverbell Road and West Linda Vista Boulevard, bounded to the North by Coachline Boulevard and adjacent to the Santa Cruz River. The name Los Morteros refers to the numerous mortars, or grinding pits, found throughout the site, with the two most prominent boulder mortars located in the center of the site. Along with the grinding pits, evidence of other village features were discovered, including pit houses, cremation pits, roasting pits, canals, hillside terraces (trincheras), petroglyphs, and one of the largest intact prehistoric ballcourts in the Southwest.

Descriptions of the site were recorded as early as 1862, but the most detailed records were provided by the climatologist Ellsworth Huntington who recorded his findings in a 1910 journal, along with data found in publications authored by him from 1912, 1913, and 1914. During these early observations from the 1860’s to 1940, much was discovered and learned about the site, however, exploration dropped from the 1940’s through the early 1960’s at which time the site was disturbed either through farming, housing development, or vandalism. Recorded observations picked up again in 1962 and from 1979-1983, extensive testing on the site was conducted through the Arizona State Museum with funding from Lew McGinnis of the American Continental Corporation in preparation for the site’s imminent destruction for a housing development. McGinnis was subsequently incarcerated and the corporation was then headed by the infamous Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal of the 1980’s. In 1987, persuaded by the State Historic Preservation Office and the Army Corps of Engineers, the corporation contracted with Desert Archeology, Inc. to conduct data recovery excavations. After approximately 10 months of fieldwork, Desert Archeology uncovered 770 pre-historic features, including the complete or partial excavation of 98 structures, an adobe walled compound enclosure, and related features.

The site was saved from destruction, and through land donations and the acquisitions of land parcels from Pima County beginning in the late 1980’s, many efforts were taken to preserve the site. A 1997 bond election authorized and funded more land acquisition and in 2004, bond funding provided financial support for the preservation project that allowed the site to become a conservation area.

Background

The size of Los Morteros and its proximity to both the Santa Cruz River and the northern end of the Tucson mountain range, also known as “Point of the Mountain”, suggests that it was one of the largest Hohokam communities in the region, providing ample resources for building, farming, and safety. A wide floodplain in this area provided large areas for farming and numerous wooded areas allowed for shade from the heat and tools for living. A Pleistocene terrace remnant found adjacent to the floodplain most likely provided mineral and botanical resources, along with security for the region. The area was known by different names initially, with observations from 1910 noting that past the tip of the mountain range, in the northern area where the river ran closest to the mountain, there was a dry bed due to a dropped water table, but water could still be found in shallow wells known as charcos that initially gave the site the name Charco del Yuma, or Chakayuma by the Mexican inhabitants around the time of exploration by Huntington and others. These wells were the last sources of drinking water for travelers heading to or from Tucson. In 1962, the main site was officially recorded as AZ AA:12:57 by R.E. Kelly and L.C.W. Landberg and was also the first formal use of the name Los Morteros.

Archeological Studies and Discoveries

In addition to the wells, other observations of the site in 1862 noted a cave adjacent to the center site. It was noted there were ruins of a “large Indian city” along with earthenware and petroglyphs. One hundred years later, in 1962, when Los Morteros was first recorded with the Arizona State Museum, the presence of a ballcourt, three mounds, and the central mortars were shown on a site map. In 1974, two undergraduate students from the University of Arizona prepared a National Register form to protect the site from development by the DOW Chemical Company and later the Peppertree Ranch Development by Lew McGinnis. A testing program was solicited by McGinnis to determine the extent and quality of the subsurface remains, and funding for the ASM to conduct the testing was provided by McGinnis, along with a donation of 32.185 acres of the central site that included the ballcourt, boulder mortars, and mounds that illustrated a rare effort from commercial developers to preserve land. In order to test the site, approximately 9 miles of trenches were dug with specifications for length and distance given to unearth as many artifacts as possible. Numerous ceramics, bone, and wood fragments were uncovered that gave insight into activities of the region.

Ballcourts

Hohokam ballcourts are large areas of oval shaped courts surrounded by earth embankments. Although there was disagreement over what the oval shaped features were for, with some arguing that they were used as collection pools for water, their smooth surface and absence of soil types seen in pools suggested they were gaming courts and centers of social activity for the area. Some courts still had the presence of line markers in their center, indicating they were used for some type of gaming. The ballcourt at Los Morteros is still intact and is believed to be one of the largest intact courts in the Southwest.

Interesting Notes

Of all the sites that are part of the Pima County preservation project, Los Morteros is the most advanced due to the amount of still intact features and has become the standard for testing and preservation activities for future projects. Los Morteros is considered an ancestral site by both the Tohono O’odham tribe of Arizona and Mexico, and the Hopi tribe of Arizona. In addition to the site as a settlement for Indigenous people, it was later a stop along the 1775 expedition by Juan Bautista de Anza that established the city of San Francisco, California. The area around Los Morteros was also the site of the 19th century Butterfield Stagecoach Station.