“Park of Four Waters, S’eḏav Va’aki, and South Mountain Park Hohokam Canals, Platform Mound, Museum and Petroglyphs Tour”

On Sunday, November 2, 2025, join Old Pueblo Archaeology Center’s “Park of Four Waters, S’eḏav Va’aki, and South Mountain Park Hohokam Canals, Platform Mound, Museum and Petroglyphs Tour” with archaeologists Christopher Schwartz, Ph.D and Aaron Wright, Ph.D, starting at S’eḏav Va’aki Museum, 4619 E. Washington St., Phoenix, AZ. The tour will be from 10:00 am to 3:30 pm, with a $75 requested donation per person ($60 for Old Pueblo Archaeology Center members), which covers the per-person S’eḏav Va’aki Museum and Park entry fees and supports Old Pueblo’s education programs about archaeology and traditional cultures.

This tour targets archetypal sites, artifacts, petroglyphs, and interpretations of southern Arizona’s ancient Hohokam/Ancestral Sonoran Desert People. In the morning, City of Phoenix Archaeologist Dr. Christopher Schwartz will lead us into the Park of Four Waters, where remnants of the largest precontact Hohokam canals still lie dormant and mostly undisturbed. These are the canal intakes near where they drew water out of the Salt River, so visitors will be amazed at how big the canals are. (The longest one, which extended 27 miles out from the river, has a huge intake area.) Next, Chris will lead us through S’edav Va’aki Archaeological Park where we will view a preserved Hohokam ballcourt and replicas of Hohokam pithouses before walking to the top of the Hohokam culture’s biggest platform mound (a stepped pyramid also called va’aki, “great house”). The paved and handicap-accessible va’aki trail goes partway around the mound before it heads upslope toward the mound crest, and has interpretive stops along the way. Once you reach the top you can view a large portion of the Salt River Valley to get a perspective on the setting in which the Hohokam lived at S’edav Va’aki. After the mound visit, participants will have time to browse the exhibits and information in the S’eḏav Va’aki Museum before we break for a bring-your-own picnic lunch in the park’s picnic area.

After lunch we will drive in a caravan to the City of Phoenix’s South Mountain Park, where Archaeology Southwest Research Anthropologist Dr. Aaron Wright will lead us to some of the park’s outstanding precontact petroglyph sites in Pima Canyon. Aaron is the author of Religion on the Rocks: Hohokam Rock Art, Ritual Practice, and Social Transformation, an acclaimed study of the Hohokam petroglyphs in the South Mountains (see Old Pueblo Archaeology bulletin 77 at www.oldpueblo.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/20160820141opa77_AReorientationInUnderstandingHohokamRockArt.pdf for a synopsis), so he will have lots to tell us about the petroglyphs there.

Participants are responsible providing their own transportation, lodging, picnic lunches, and water. Registration and donation prepayment are due 10 days after reservation request or by 5 pm Wednesday October 29, whichever is earlier. To register or for more information contact Old Pueblo at info@oldpueblo.org or 520-798-1201.

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Caption: Top, Park of Four Waters sign at S’eḏav Va’aki Museum; left, a portion of the S’edav Va’aki Hohokam pyramid; right, petroglyphs in Pima Canyon, South Mountain Park (Photos by Allen Dart, National Park Service, and Aaron Wright, respectively)