Introduction

The nature of Hohokam social organization has always been at the core of debates surrounding the prehistory of southern Arizona. The Ciudad analysis sought to arrive at a substantive interpretation of the historical processes embodied in the archaeological record of death, society, and ideology in the Hohokam community at La Ciudad. Studies of Hohokam social organization characterize this organization in terms of an evolutionary category or a single underlying dimension of complexity. Hohokam potters produced a red-on-grey pottery in the earliest phases of the period but by the end of the period they had developed this ware into the typically Hohokam red-on-buff style. The theoretical shifts embodied in the New Archaeology altered the direction of Hohokam research of the early 1970s, once again making internal differentiation in Hohokam society a primary issue. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.