Arizona History Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The Great Bend of the Gila occupies a stretch of the lower Gila River in southwestern Arizona, where the westerly flowing river turns south and then west again as it empties into the Colorado River. Here, the river is lined by jagged peaks and ancient lava flows, which meld into an interesting and harmonious balance between water and fire, mountains and valley. Atop this unique natural landscape lies an equally intriguing ancient cultural landscape that speaks to a deep history of multiculturalism in one of the most challenging environments
on Earth.
For more than 12,000 years, the Great Bend of the Gila has been a cultural crossroads on the American frontier, where people of different backgrounds, traditions, and values came together in interesting and inspiring ways. This legacy is preserved in an amazing array of fragile cultural resources dotting the landscape. The region is best known for the countless examples of visually stunning petroglyphs carved into the cooled and hardened lava. The petroglyphs were authored by Native Americans, as well as by Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American explorers and travelers. Most of the rock art is attributable to Archaic, Patayan, and
Hohokam cultural traditions that are ancestral to many contemporary Native American communities in Arizona, New Mexico, southern California, northern Sonora, and Baja California. The rock art materializes the cultural diversity that has characterized the region for millennia.
The Great Bend of the Gila is also recognized as the eastern range of geoglyphs. Geoglyphs are symbols created on the ground surface by either removing the desert gravels to expose lighter-colored sediments, or by aligning rocks to create designs. These enigmatic features occasionally take the form of humans or animals, but most often, they consist of abstract and geometrical shapes. While rock art and geoglyphs adorn the cliffs and mesas lining the river, ancient villages cover the valley floor. Hohokam and Patayan farmers cultivated these lands for more than
1,000 years. They left their mark in a variety of architectural signatures, such as buried pithouses, adobe and stone buildings, ballcourts, and irrigation canals. This village-scape also includes several walled settlements built on promontories along the river. Early explorers believed these to be ancient forts, and archaeologists and Native American consultants agree that they likely served a defensive purpose.
As a cultural crossroads, the Great Bend of the Gila was a corridor for people and goods moving through this frontier. This is most evident in the extensive network of ancient trails that criss-cross the landscape and converge in the valleys of the Great Bend. These trails stretch in every direction, linking the Pacific Coast to the Great Plains and West Mexico with the Great Basin. The Great Bend of the Gila was central to pre-Hispanic economies that circulated goods over incredibly long distances.
The Great Bend’s frontier essence persisted into the Historic era and was instrumental in the westward expansion of the United States. The river valley served as an overland route between Spanish settlements in Sonora and their missions along the California coast. This trail was blazed by Father Eusebio Kino in 1699, and later formalized by Juan Bautista de Anza in 1775. This route was the foundation for many subsequent transcontinental trails and roads, including Kearny’s Trail for the Mormon Battalion and the Butterfield Overland Stage Line. Stage stations and pioneer communities sprang up along these trails. At one of these, Stanwix station, the California Column encountered several Confederate Rangers and a battle ensued, thus marking the site of the westernmost skirmish of the Civil War.
The area’s cultural resources are truly world class, and the region’s history is a one-of-akind chapter in our country’s saga. The Great Bend of the Gila, as a natural and cultural landscape, is nationally significant and speaks to aspects of our country’s cultural composition in a way no other place can.