The Classic period of the Hohokam, which lasted from about 1200 to 1400 A. D. or not long thereafter, was a remarkable era which has been referred to as “the Golden Age of southern Arizona”. As has been previously noted, however, _Classic_ is hardly an accurate designation since we are no longer dealing with a pure Hohokam culture. It was during this time that Pueblo traits and, later, Pueblo people themselves entered the Hohokam homeland. The newcomers, whose influence had been felt even before they themselves arrived, were a group known as the Salado people. The Saladoans are believed to have originated in the Little Colorado area, which they left to move farther south into the Tonto Basin around 1100 A. D.[56] About 1300 they again moved farther south and entered the domain of the Hohokam. They brought with them their own distinctive culture which differed in some ways from the classic Pueblo of the San Juan area and was far different from that of the Hohokam. They built thick-walled, multi-storied communal houses of adobe, in walled compounds. Their pottery included coiled and scraped polychrome wares in red, black, and white. They practiced inhumation, or burial of the dead. [Illustration: Fig. 50—Salado polychrome ware. (Courtesy National Park Service.)] The coming together of the Salado people and the Hohokam is really remarkable. There is no evidence of an invasion nor of violence. Instead, these two culturally different people seem to have come together in a friendly manner and lived together in the same communities in peace and amity. Each group, to a great extent, clung to its own way of life, yet together they achieved a distinctive culture. It was during this period that the canal system reached its highest development. Doubtless the newcomers, who had had no real irrigation system before, contributed their labor to the common project of building and maintaining the canals which were built to serve their villages. In the Hohokam culture proper there were certain changes. Pottery included plain buff ware and a pebble-polished bright red ware, usually in the form of bowls with black interiors, as well as the ubiquitous red-on-buff. In the latter, the red paint was thinner and less brilliantly colored than in earlier times. Jars and pitchers, the latter an innovation of this period, were the commonest forms. Jars with a capacity of over thirty gallons have been found. Painting was characterized by poor brush work. Most designs were rectilinear and practically no life-forms were used. A few figurines, representing both human beings and animals, have been found at Los Muertos, a Classic site, but they were too few to have been important in the culture. There is, of course, the possibility that some were made of perishable materials instead of clay and hence have not survived.