Swarts Ruin , also known as the Swarts Ranch Ruin , is an archaeological site in New Mexico 's Mimbres Valley excavated from 1924 to 1927 by Harriet S. ("Hattie") Cosgrove and Cornelius B. ("Burt") Cosgrove .
8-464: Although the self-taught husband-and-wife team had observed other archaeological digs and excavated on their own New Mexico property, Swarts Ruin would be the couple's first professional archaeology endeavor, financed by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University , where Swarts Ruin artifacts are conserved. Although J. Walter Fewkes had brought Mimbres pottery to
16-453: A native of South Danvers (now eponymously named Peabody, Massachusetts ). Peabody committed $ 150,000 to be used, according to the terms of the trust, to establish the position of Peabody Professor-Curator, to purchase artifacts, and to construct a building to house its collections. Peabody directed his trustees to organize the construction of "a suitable fireproof museum building, upon land to be given for that purpose, free of cost or rental, by
24-587: A new introduction by Steven A. LeBlanc . Peabody Museum Press, Cambridge, MA, 2011. ISBN 978-0-87365-214-8 Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology is a museum affiliated with Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts , United States. Founded in 1866, the Peabody Museum is one of the oldest and largest museums focusing on anthropological material, with particular focus on
32-523: A wide variety of Southwest artists. Although the Cosgroves were aware of tree-ring dating , they did not know that charred wooden beams could yield accurate information under the new method; unfortunately no burned wood samples were saved. Nevertheless, the Cosgroves estimated the date of the site (1000–1150 CE) to within 20 years of what later archaeologists would determine a likely end date (1130 CE), based on comparison to similar Mimbres communities in
40-626: The ethnography and archaeology of the Americas . The museum is caretaker to over 1.2 million objects, some 900 feet (270 m) of documents, 2,000 maps and site plans, and about 500,000 photographs. The museum is located at Divinity Avenue on the Harvard University campus. The museum is one of the four Harvard Museums of Science and Culture open to the public. The museum was established through an October 8, 1866, gift from wealthy American financier and philanthropist George Peabody ,
48-579: The President and Fellows of Harvard College". In 1867, the museum opened its first exhibition, which consisted of a small number of prehistoric artifacts from the Merrimack Valley in Harvard University's Boylston Hall . In 1877, the long-awaited museum building was completed and ready for occupancy. The building that houses the Peabody was expanded in 1888 and again in 1913. Peabody Museum
56-495: The public's attention in 1914, the publication in 1932 of The Swarts Ruin: A Typical Mimbres Site in Southwestern New Mexico gave readers not just the first coherent description of a Mimbres village, but caused a sensation thanks to Hattie's more than 700 painstaking pen-and-ink drawings of Mimbres bowl designs, which provided eclectic, enduring, and powerful visual inspiration to Native American potters and to
64-574: The region. The Swarts Ruin discovery broadly informed Mary Colter 's designs for the Santa Fe Railroad 's distinctive "Mimbreño" china, produced for the Super Chief (and later for business class dining cars) from 1936 to 1970. To satisfy collector demands, authorized "Mimbreño" reproductions have been manufactured since 1989. Cosgrove, Harriet S. and C. Burton, The Swarts Ruin: A Typical Mimbres Site in Southwestern New Mexico , with
#160839