re: #259 Ian G.

I’m pretty sure the Navajos didn’t live where Phoenix is. They lived (and still do) up by Flagstaff, where the high elevation makes for a much more moderate climate. I think the name of the Phoenix Valley in their language translates as “place where it’s too hot”.

Wikipedia:

Phoenix (/ˈfiːnɪks/ FEE-niks; O’odham: S-ki:kigk; Yavapai: Wathinka or Wakatehe; Western Apache: Fiinigis; Navajo: Hoozdoh; Mojave: Hachpa ‘Anya Nyava)[3]

[…]

For more than 2,000 years, the Hohokam peoples occupied the land that would become Phoenix.[8] The Hohokam created roughly 135 miles (217 km) of irrigation canals, making the desert land arable. Paths of these canals would later become used for the modern Arizona Canal, Central Arizona Project Canal, and the Hayden-Rhodes Aqueduct. The Hohokam also carried out extensive trade with the nearby Anasazi, Mogollon and Sinagua, as well as with the more distant Mesoamerican civilizations. It is believed that a Hohokam witness of the supernova that occurred in 1006 CE created a representation of the event in the form of a petroglyph that can be found in the White Tank Mountain Regional Park west of Phoenix. This has been interpreted as the first known North American representation of the supernova.[9]

It is believed that between 1300 and 1450, periods of drought and severe floods led to the Hohokam civilization’s abandonment of the area.[8] Local Akimel O’odham settlements, thought to be the descendants of the formerly urbanized Hohokam, concentrated on the Gila River. Some family groups did continue to live near the Salt River, but no large villages existed. Yavapai also had settlements in the area. Later, Maricopa peoples fleeing enemy tribes, came from the lower Gila River near its confluence with the Colorado River, and settled alongside, as well as deer and Mexican wolves, often lived in the Salt River Valley when water supplies and temperatures allowed.

Of course, the climate has changed a lot between then and now.