Casa Grande, meaning “great house” in Spanish, was built by the Hohokam in about 1325. Located near what is now Florence, Arizona, it was a huge four-story building with a 35-foot tower in the center.
The walls were made from bricks of clay called adobe, and the roof was reinforced with great wooden beams that the builders carried from a site more than 50 miles away.
The Mogollon of the Mimbres Valley often placed a piece of pottery decorated with an animal into a grave. They believed that by breaking a hole in the pot, they could release the painted animal’s spirit, who could then guide the dead person to the afterlife.
