Saturday at the White Tanks

The most recent Washington Street activity had us visiting the White Tank Mountain Park about 25 miles west of Phoenix. Overall a pretty bland stretch of geography littered with granite mountains, saguaros, and assorted desert vegetation. What made the visit interesting was its history.

This area used to be one of the central settlements for the Hohokam Indian tribes that lived and thrived in the greater valley sometime between 300 and 1500 AD. Our hike passed through numerous petroglyphs depicting various facets of their culture. Evidently some of them are purportedly 10,000 years old. This lost civilization continues to play a role in Phoenix development today. Last week I attended a meeting that outlined how any new developments in the valley need to be screened for archaeological material. If anything of significance, burial ground for example, is discovered then the developer needs to pay for a team of archaeologists to work the site and to return certain materials and remains to the local native Americans.