The Hohokam () were an ancient Native American culture centered in the present US state of Arizona. The Hohokam are one of the four major cultures of the American Southwest and northern Mexico in Southwestern archaeology. Considered part of the Oasisamerica tradition, the Hohokam established significant trading centers such as at Snaketown, and are considered to be the builders of the original canal system around the Phoenix metropolitan area, which the Mormon pioneers rebuilt when they settled the Lehi area of Mesa near Red Mountain. Variant spellings in current, official usage include Hobokam, Huhugam, and Huhukam.

Although Casa Grande red-on-buff continued to be produced, the pottery type that characterized this phase was Salado polychrome, primarily Gila polychrome. This ceramic type was either manufactured locally or procured as a trade ware. This phase also had the introduction the comal, similar to examples found in northern Mexico, and the production of bird-shaped effigy vessels. Examples of exotic stone and shell artifacts associated with high-status individuals - such as nose plugs, pendants, ear rings, bracelets, necklaces, and sophisticated shell inlays - indicate that the design and manufacture of jewelry reached its zenith during this phase. Other important developments were the significant increased procurement and manufacture of red ware, and the near-universal use of inhumation burial in the area north of the Gila River, both similar to the practices and traditions used by the historic O'odham. Immediately after AD 1300, Hohokam villages were reorganized along the lines experienced in the Lower Verde, Tonto Basin, and Safford Basin, in the 13th century. These compounds were composed of a large, rectangular exterior wall that either completely or more typically partially enclosed a series of contiguous courtyards and plazas delineated by interior partition walls. In turn, each courtyard may have contained one to as many as four large, rectangular, adobe-walled pitrooms, possibly associated with several utility structures. Overall, these communities were characterized by relatively compact clusters of between five and 25 adobe-walled compounds, which tended to be grouped around a single very large and well-built compound that often had some form of large community structure, such as a platform mound or great house. Great house structures, as with the one preserved at Casa Grande Ruins National Monument, were built only at the largest communities. These stone or adobe buildings had up to four stories, and were probably used by the managerial or religious elites. They may have also been constructed to align with astronomical observations. Trade with Mexico appears to have declined, but an increased number of trade goods arrived from Pueblo peoples in the north and the east. Between AD 1350 and 1375, the Hohokam tradition lost vitality and stability, and many of the largest settlements were abandoned. Rapidly changing climatic conditions apparently substantially affected the Hohokam agricultural base and subsequently prevented the cohesion of their large communities. Repeated floods in the middle 14th century significantly deepened the Salt River bed while destroying canal heads, which required their continuous extension upstream. Soon, additional flooding removed irreplaceable segments of these extensions, which effectively rendered hundreds of miles of canals virtually useless. Because of differences in hydrology and geomorphology, these processes had a lesser impact on the irrigation systems used by the Hohokam in the Gila River basin, yet these were abandoned, as well. CANNOTANSWER

Why did they lose stability and vitality?

Rapidly changing climatic conditions apparently substantially affected the Hohokam agricultural base and subsequently prevented the cohesion of their large communities.