We’ve all heard of the Hohokam, the agricultural society that lived in the Salt River area from approximately 450 AD to 1450 AD and supported their extensive crop system with miles of hand-built canals.

You can tour an ancient ruin without leaving town on Saturday.

Kids can discover how archaeologists investigate lives past through hands-on activities at a real archaeological site.

Already explored birding hotspots in Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa and even Superior? Try heading the other direction, to Deer Valley Rock Art Center, an outdoor archaeology museum in northwest Phoenix with the largest concentration of Native American petroglyphs in the Valley.

Circle your wagons. By this weekend, downtown Mesa will be turning back the clock to more than a century ago when the city’s residents lived among cowboys, Indians, outlaws and scofflaws, and the horses they rode in on.

Ten sun conures, two blue-throated macaws and a shamrock macaw named Buckle will soar overhead, interact with spectators and serve as inspiration for questions and answers during an event Oct. 27 at Pueblo Grande Museum and Archaeological Park in Phoenix.

Perhaps we’ll stroll amid massive boulders etched with ancient symbols, stopping for a picnic lunch. Or maybe we’ll take the kids via light rail to craft a Yavapai burden basket inside a cool downtown gallery. Whatever we pick, you can be sure we’ll take advantage of Museum Day Live on Sept. 29, when admission to museums across the country is free.

At the age of 93, Sam Lewis still gets emotional about his grandparents’ former property in west Mesa — the one he and his family knew as home in the 1920s, long after the ancient Hohokam lived there.

Mesa is holding a public meeting July 31 to share plans for a visitors center that will open this fall at the Mesa Grande ruins. City staff will outline plans and renderings for the project and parking at the site, which is west of the intersection of Country Club Drive and Brown Road.

Out there among the bursage and prickly pear, the boulders relay messages from another time, when hardy, sun-browned people took sustenance from the desert. You can see the story they left behind Friday on a twilight tour through hundreds of symbols carved in stone.

How they managed to live out here, I’ll never grasp, I think, resting in a spot of shade against a boulder in the Superstition Mountains east of the Valley.

How they managed to live out here, I’ll never grasp, I think, resting in a spot of shade against a boulder in the Superstition Mountains east of the Valley.

How they managed to live out here, I’ll never grasp, I think, resting in a spot of shade against a boulder in the Superstition Mountains east of the Valley.

Before the Chicago Cubs start a new chapter of their history in a new Mesa training complex, archeologists are scouring the team’s future home for clues about the ancient Hohokam who once thrived in the area.

What do you know about the Grand Canyon?

The prehistoric Hohokam used the Salt River to create a society that thrived for hundreds of years, only to collapse. Our modern society relies on that same river — but does that mean we could face the same fate as the Hohokam?

As Tempe is finishing a partial restoration of the historic Hayden Flour Mill, an architect is urging the city not to paint the iconic building despite prominent rust stains and peeling paint.

The Arizona Museum of Natural History will host a March 8 event for home-schooled children at the Mesa Grande ruins. The program will feature the archaeology of the Mesa Grande ruins built by the Hohokam, who lived in the Valley from about 1 A.D. to 1450 A.D. Participants will visit the ruins, and meet archaeologists while learning how to work on an active archaeological site. The program is designed for multiple learning levels with a range of hands-on activities. It is scheduled from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. March 8.

Looking to take a trip to Grand Canyon National Park this month? 

Mesa is trying to shine a brighter light on historic preservation after the recession forced the city to scale back its efforts to recognize people who've saved elements of the community's past.