Arizona Couldn’t Survive Without This Thousand Year Old Innovation

Arizona's deserts are dry and hot, but you knew that already. You may have wondered to yourself, "how on earth could humanity survive out here", before getting sidetracked by something else and forgetting about it.

Turns out, we have one innovation to thank for that, and it began thousands of years ago.

Arizona's Canal System

A major part of why Arizona is able to stay afloat and support civilization is the incredibly advanced irrigation and canal system that runs through our most barren of regions. These canals transport water to places that never should be seeing it, allowing for populations and agriculture to prosper.

The system is designed to be as efficient as possible, using dams to power hydroelectric generators, allowing for smaller cities and towns to grow around them, much like the earliest civilizations did in Mesopotamia (between two rivers).

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Hohokam Contribution

You may think that these canals and irrigation systems are a modern invention, allowing for settlers to live easier off the harsh Arizona land, but the system has been around since before Europeans even knew there was a new world.

These advancements can be attributed to the Hohokam people, who mysteriously disappeared from the land in 1450. Before that, however, they were masters at taming this harsh environment, digging the earliest versions of these canal systems in around 800 A.D. The feats of engineering of these canals is almost impossible to replicate, and so well planned that we still use these canals to keep Arizona afloat today.

[Visit Phoenix][Salt River Stories]