Swarts Ruin, also known as the Swarts Ranch Ruin, is an archaeological site in

New Mexico New Mexico is a state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States. It is one of the Mountain States of the southern Rocky Mountains, sharing the Four Corners region with Utah, Colorado, and Arizona. It also ...

Mimbres Valley Mimbres Valley is an American Viticultural Area, American Viticultural Area (AVA) located in southwestern New Mexico between the towns of Silver City, New Mexico, Silver City and Columbus, New Mexico, Columbus encircling Deming, New Mexico, Demi ...

excavated from 1924 to 1927 by Harriet S. ("Hattie") Cosgrove and Cornelius B. ("Burt") Cosgrove. 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 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 anthropologica ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, where Swarts Ruin artifacts are conserved. Although J. Walter Fewkes had brought

Mimbres pottery The Mogollon culture ( ) is a pre-historic archaeological culture of Native American peoples from Southern New Mexico and Arizona, Northern Sonora and Chihuahua, and Western Texas. The northern part of this region is Oasisamerica, while the sout ...

to 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 a wide variety of

Southwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west— ...

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 the region. The Swarts Ruin discovery broadly informed

Mary Colter Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter (April 4, 1869 – January 8, 1958) was an American architect and designer. She was one of the very few female American architects in her day. She was the designer of many landmark buildings and spaces for the Fred Har ...

's designs for the

Santa Fe Railroad The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the largest Class 1 railroads in the United States between 1859 and 1996. The Santa Fe was a pioneer in intermodal freight transport; at variou ...

's distinctive "Mimbreño" china, produced for the

Super Chief The ''Super Chief'' was one of the List of named passenger trains, named train, passenger trains and the flagship of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. The then-modern streamliner was touted in its heyday as "The Train of the Stars" b ...

(and later for business class dining cars) from 1936 to 1970. To satisfy collector demands, authorized "Mimbreño" reproductions have been manufactured since 1989.

References

Cosgrove, Harriet S. and C. Burton, ''The Swarts Ruin: A Typical Mimbres Site in Southwestern New Mexico'', with a new introduction by Steven A. LeBlanc. Peabody Museum Press, Cambridge, MA, 2011. {{authority control Former populated places in New Mexico Grant County, New Mexico History of Grant County, New Mexico Native American history of New Mexico Native American pottery Mogollon culture Ruins in the United States Archaeological sites in New Mexico