Editing Irrigation (section)

==== North America ====
{{Main|Hohokam}}
[[File:Jang_Yeong-sil_Science_Garden-Rain_Gauges_13-11789_Busan,_South_Korea_03.JPG|thumb|356x356px|A [[Cheugugi]] at Jang Yeong-sil Science Garden in [[Busan]]]]
The earliest agricultural irrigation canal system known in the area of the present-day [[United States of America|United States]] dates to between 1200 BCE and 800 BCE and was discovered by Desert Archaeology, Inc. in Marana, Arizona (adjacent to Tucson) in 2009.<ref>{{cite web |title=Earliest Canals in America – Archaeology Magazine Archive |url=http://archive.archaeology.org/0909/trenches/canals.html}}</ref> The irrigation-canal system predates the Hohokam culture by two thousand years and belongs to an unidentified culture. In North America, the Hohokam were the only culture known to rely on irrigation canals to water their crops, and their irrigation systems supported the largest population in the Southwest by CE 1300. The Hohokam constructed various simple canals combined with [[weirs]] in their various agricultural pursuits. Between the 7th and 14th centuries, they built and maintained extensive irrigation networks along the lower [[Salt River (Arizona)|Salt]] and middle [[Gila River]]s that rivaled the complexity of those used in the ancient Near East, Egypt, and China. These were constructed using relatively simple excavation tools, without the benefit of advanced engineering technologies, and achieved drops of a few feet per mile, balancing erosion and siltation. The Hohokam cultivated cotton, tobacco, maize, beans, and squash varieties and harvested an assortment of wild plants. Late in the Hohokam Chronological Sequence, they used extensive dry-farming systems, primarily to grow [[Agave murpheyi|agave]] for food and fiber. Their reliance on agricultural strategies based on canal irrigation, vital in their less-than-hospitable desert environment and arid climate, provided the basis for the aggregation of rural populations into stable urban centers.<ref>
James M. Bayman, "The Hohokam of Southwest North America." ''Journal of World Prehistory'' 15.3 (2001): 257–311.
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