Surface water resources for prehistoric peoples in western Papaguer?́a of the North American south-west

Water for personal use was a limiting factor for the prehistoric and historic indigenous peoples who inhabited the extremely arid North American region of south-western Arizona and north-western Sonora, known as Papaguer?́a. This paper lists and quantifies the perennial and intermittent water resources available to them. In the 16,824 km²study area of the Sonoran Desert, there were 128 waterholes, most of them in the mountains and, when full, these offered at least 3,099,141 l of water. At today's precipitation levels, virtually all points of the region were accessible to inhabitants within a 40 km radius of one or more water sources.