Agriculture in the prehistoric Southwest
After the Hohokam disappeared, Spanish explorers of the 16th century noted the use of canal irrigation in only two areas of the Southwest: eastern Sonora, primarily practiced by the Opata and Lower Pima, and among the Pueblos of northern New Mexico. Irrigation by the Opata and Pueblos had different objectives. In Sonora, with a long growing season, two crops of maize a year were grown in river valleys. The spring crop during the dry season was dependent upon irrigation; the summer and fall crop during the rainy season utilized irrigation to supplement rainfall. The necessity of irrigation probably required a high level of social organization. In New Mexico, with only one crop of maize per year possible, irrigation was supplemental and the lesser dependence on irrigation implies less social organization than in Sonora.
Dismal River culture
Bourgmont wrote that the Padouca maintained permanent villages. They sent out regular hunting parties, in groups of 50-100 households. As one hunting party returned, another would leave, so that the village was occupied at all times. They journeyed up to five or six days travel from their village to hunt. The Padouca sowed corn and pumpkins. They obtained tobacco and horses from trade with the Spanish in New Mexico in exchange for tanned buffalo skins. The explorer noticed that some of the Apache still used flint knives for skinning buffalo and felling trees, an indicator that not much European trade had reached them.