Archaeology in the Mountain Shadows: Exploring the Romero Ruin

The Romero Ruin, located in what is now Catalina State Park and accessible via a 3/4 mile trail, is a 15 acre site that was one of several large Hohokam villages in the Tucson Basin. The settlement was continuously inhabited from A.D. 500 to 1450 and as many as 125 to 200 people may have lived at the settlement at its peak around A.D. 900. Around 1875 several buildings were built on the site as part of the Romero Ranch.

In 1996 Archaeology Southwest published a booklet titled Archaeology in the Mountain Shadows: Exploring the Romero Ruin and in 2013 updated and expanded the content in Archaeology Southwest Magazine, Volume 27 Number 1, Winter 2013.

There is great basic information about the ruin on interpretive signs along the Romero Ruin Interpretive Trail, but these short publications (the revised version is 20 pages) provide additional information that is  concise, interesting and accessible.

Top: Archaeology Southwest Magazine, Volume 27 Number 1, Winter 2013. Bottom: Archaeology in the Mountain Shadows: Exploring the Romero Ruin, 1996. January 2016.
Top: Archaeology Southwest Magazine, Volume 27 Number 1, Winter 2013. Bottom: Archaeology in the Mountain Shadows: Exploring the Romero Ruin, 1996. January 2016.