Mark Raymond Harrington
Encyclopedia
Mark Raymond Harrington (July 6, 1882—June 30, 1971) was curator of archaeology at the Southwest Museum
1928-1964 and discoverer of ancient Pueblo
structures near Overton, Nevada
and Little Lake, California.
, excavating and collecting local artifacts, thus feeding an early and lifelong interest in Native American culture.
, then the curator in anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History
in New York City
. Putnam hired Harrington as an apprentice field archaeologist, a post that eventually allowed him to attend Columbia University
, where he studied under the celebrated anthropologist Franz Boas
. He earned a bachelor of science degree in 1907 and a master of arts
in anthropology in 1908. That same year, he went to work for George Gustav Heye
, the collector of Native American artifacts who later established the Museum of the American Indian in New York City
. Harrington spent three years collecting artifacts and documenting tribes in the East and Midwest for Heye. He was assistant curator at the University of Pennsylvania museum 1911-1915.
In 1912, Harrington met Mabel Dodge Luhan
and introduced her and a group of friends to peyote
during an impromptu "ceremony" at her apartment in Greenwich Village
. Among the participants were Harrington's cousin of anarchist Hutchins Hapgood
and his wife, author Neith Boyce Hapgood
. This incident became legendary in counterculture circles.
In 1917, Harrington married Anna Alexander Johns, who gave him a son, Johns Heye Harrington, who was named with his mother's maiden name and Heye's last name and was born on September 5, 1918. Harrington spent the next 13 years working for Heye as an archaeologist, ethnologist, field collector and curator in Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, Nevada, Texas, Cuba, and Ecuador.
Beginning in 1925, Harrington made some of his most significant discoveries, of ancient dwellings of Pueblo Indians and their precursors, known as “the Basketmakers,” in Nevada
. One find was a set of 46 structures, the largest of which contained 100 rooms. Harrington estimated the earliest occupiers to have been there around 1500 B.C. More recent studies have determined the artifacts from the site to be much more recent, from between 300 to 500 B.C. Some of the stone and adobe dwellings appeared to have been made by Pueblo Indians, whose antiquity he also overestimated. Later study showed them to be from 700-1150 A.D.
Anna died on August 13, 1927 of an unspecified "brief illness." In December of that year, Harrington married Edna L. Parker, a descendant of the famous Seneca religious leader of the Iroquois, Handsome Lake
. She was also the sister of Arthur C. Parker
, an archaeologist, folklorist and expert on Native Americans whose Iroquois name was Gawaso Wanneh. Friends knew Edna as Nandaka or Endeka.
to be curator of archaeology at the Southwest Museum, beginning an association that would last until his retirement. During this time, he earned an honorary doctorate from Occidental College
. He conducted excavations in Los Angeles, Nevada and other sites on behalf of the museum. He returned to the site, along the Muddy River
, where he had made his earlier discoveries, to conduct a complete survey.
In 1930, Harrington bought the dilapidated Andrés Pico Adobe, also known as the Rómulo Pico Adobe or Ranchito Rómulo, near the San Fernando Rey Mission in the San Fernando Valley
. It is one of the oldest residences in Los Angeles. Partial walls still stood, but the floor, roof, a staircase, window and door frames required rebuilding. Harrington also built an addition to the north wing of the house, put a fireplace in the living room, rebuilt patio walls and added a garage. The couple lived there 15 years.
At the time he undertook the Pico Adobe project, Harrington and a colleague also began to dig in Gypsum Cave in the Frenchman Range
in Nevada, where they found Basketmaker artifacts, along with bones of an extinct species of ground sloth. Harrington concluded that both had existed at the same time and dated them to 8500 B.C., a controversial theory. Later studies showed he was in the correct range for the animal bones, but badly mistaken about the human artifacts, which were dated to 900-400 B.C. His dating for another site at Tule Springs
, near Las Vegas
, has equally been called into question. Harrington found a spear point in an apparent fire pit alongside the bones of several ancient animals, which led him to assert in a published article that they were contemporaries and that the site was between 10,000 and 25,000 years old. More recent scrutiny has put his dating in doubt, however.
In 1933, on loan from the museum, Harrington went to work for the National Park Service
under the Civilian Conservation Corps
. He directed a project to salvage as much as possible of the Pueblo Grande de Nevada
archaeological site, also known as Nevada's "Lost City," near Overton, Nevada
. The site was about to be destroyed by the new Lake Mead
, born of the construction of Hoover Dam
. They found 17 new sites and dug until “there was literally water lapping at their boots.”
In 1947, Harrington learned from a friend of an ancient site located about 160 miles northeast of Los Angeles that contained artifacts attributed to the Pinto Culture, believed to have existed in the area as early as 3000 B.C. Harrington excavated the location—dubbed the Stahl site for the composer Willy Stahl, its discoverer—for at least the next two years. During this time, on September 20, 1948, Edna died. He married a third time, to author Marie Toma Walsh, in April of the following year. Harrington published his report on the Stahl site in 1957.
Harrington retired from the Southwest Museum in 1964. He died in 1971 and is buried at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills.
Southwest Museum
The Southwest Museum of the American Indian is a museum, library, and archive located in the Mt. Washington area of Los Angeles, California. It is part of the Autry National Center. Its collections deal mainly with the American Indian...
1928-1964 and discoverer of ancient Pueblo
Pueblo
Pueblo is a term used to describe modern communities of Native Americans in the Southwestern United States of America. The first Spanish explorers of the Southwest used this term to describe the communities housed in apartment-like structures built of stone, adobe mud, and other local material...
structures near Overton, Nevada
Overton, Nevada
Overton is an Unincorporated Town located in Clark County, Nevada. The town is on the north end of Lake Mead. The town is home to Perkins Field airport and Echo Bay Airport....
and Little Lake, California.
Early life
Harrington knew early the rigors and fascinations of academic life. The son of Rose Martha Smith Harrington and Mark Walrod Harrington, a professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan who also held appointments in botany, zoology and geology, he spent his childhood roaming the area around Ann Arbor, Mich., his hometown, learning tribal languages from Indian friends and, when his family moved to Mount Vernon, New YorkMount Vernon, New York
Mount Vernon is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States. It lies on the border of the New York City borough of The Bronx.-Overview:...
, excavating and collecting local artifacts, thus feeding an early and lifelong interest in Native American culture.
Education and archaeological career
When his father's poor health and mental illness forced him to drop out of school, Harrington took some of his finds to Frederic Ward PutnamFrederic Ward Putnam
Frederic Ward Putnam was an American naturalist and anthropologist.-Biography:...
, then the curator in anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Putnam hired Harrington as an apprentice field archaeologist, a post that eventually allowed him to attend Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, where he studied under the celebrated anthropologist Franz Boas
Franz Boas
Franz Boas was a German-American anthropologist and a pioneer of modern anthropology who has been called the "Father of American Anthropology" and "the Father of Modern Anthropology." Like many such pioneers, he trained in other disciplines; he received his doctorate in physics, and did...
. He earned a bachelor of science degree in 1907 and a master of arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in anthropology in 1908. That same year, he went to work for George Gustav Heye
George Gustav Heye
George Gustav Heye was a collector of Native American artifacts. His collection became the core of the National Museum of the American Indian.-Biography:...
, the collector of Native American artifacts who later established the Museum of the American Indian in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Harrington spent three years collecting artifacts and documenting tribes in the East and Midwest for Heye. He was assistant curator at the University of Pennsylvania museum 1911-1915.
In 1912, Harrington met Mabel Dodge Luhan
Mabel Dodge Luhan
Mabel Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan , née Ganson was a wealthy American patron of the arts. She is particularly associated with the Taos art colony.-Early life:...
and introduced her and a group of friends to peyote
Peyote
Lophophora williamsii , better known by its common name Peyote , is a small, spineless cactus with psychoactive alkaloids, particularly mescaline.It is native to southwestern Texas and Mexico...
during an impromptu "ceremony" at her apartment in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
. Among the participants were Harrington's cousin of anarchist Hutchins Hapgood
Hutchins Hapgood
Hutchins Hapgood was an U.S. journalist, author, individualist anarchist/philosophical anarchist....
and his wife, author Neith Boyce Hapgood
Neith Boyce
Neith Boyce Hapgood was a U.S. novelist and playwright.She married Hutchins Hapgood on June 22, 1899...
. This incident became legendary in counterculture circles.
In 1917, Harrington married Anna Alexander Johns, who gave him a son, Johns Heye Harrington, who was named with his mother's maiden name and Heye's last name and was born on September 5, 1918. Harrington spent the next 13 years working for Heye as an archaeologist, ethnologist, field collector and curator in Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma, Nevada, Texas, Cuba, and Ecuador.
Beginning in 1925, Harrington made some of his most significant discoveries, of ancient dwellings of Pueblo Indians and their precursors, known as “the Basketmakers,” in Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
. One find was a set of 46 structures, the largest of which contained 100 rooms. Harrington estimated the earliest occupiers to have been there around 1500 B.C. More recent studies have determined the artifacts from the site to be much more recent, from between 300 to 500 B.C. Some of the stone and adobe dwellings appeared to have been made by Pueblo Indians, whose antiquity he also overestimated. Later study showed them to be from 700-1150 A.D.
Anna died on August 13, 1927 of an unspecified "brief illness." In December of that year, Harrington married Edna L. Parker, a descendant of the famous Seneca religious leader of the Iroquois, Handsome Lake
Handsome Lake
Handsome Lake was a Seneca religious leader of the Iroquois people. He was also half-brother to Cornplanter....
. She was also the sister of Arthur C. Parker
Arthur C. Parker
Arthur Caswell Parker was an American archaeologist, historian, folklorist, museologist and noted authority on American Indian culture. Of Seneca and Scots-English descent, he was director of the Rochester Museum of Arts and Sciences from 1924 to 1945, when he developed its holdings and research...
, an archaeologist, folklorist and expert on Native Americans whose Iroquois name was Gawaso Wanneh. Friends knew Edna as Nandaka or Endeka.
Southwest Museum
In 1928, Harrington came to Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
to be curator of archaeology at the Southwest Museum, beginning an association that would last until his retirement. During this time, he earned an honorary doctorate from Occidental College
Occidental College
Occidental College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887, Occidental College, or "Oxy" as it is called by students and alumni, is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges on the West Coast...
. He conducted excavations in Los Angeles, Nevada and other sites on behalf of the museum. He returned to the site, along the Muddy River
Muddy River
The Muddy River, formerly known as the Moapa River, is a short river located in the southern part of the state in Clark County, Nevada, United States. It is in the Mojave Desert, approximately 60 miles north of Las Vegas.-Geography:...
, where he had made his earlier discoveries, to conduct a complete survey.
In 1930, Harrington bought the dilapidated Andrés Pico Adobe, also known as the Rómulo Pico Adobe or Ranchito Rómulo, near the San Fernando Rey Mission in the San Fernando Valley
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
. It is one of the oldest residences in Los Angeles. Partial walls still stood, but the floor, roof, a staircase, window and door frames required rebuilding. Harrington also built an addition to the north wing of the house, put a fireplace in the living room, rebuilt patio walls and added a garage. The couple lived there 15 years.
At the time he undertook the Pico Adobe project, Harrington and a colleague also began to dig in Gypsum Cave in the Frenchman Range
Frenchman Range
The Frenchman Range is a mountain range in Clark County, Nevada....
in Nevada, where they found Basketmaker artifacts, along with bones of an extinct species of ground sloth. Harrington concluded that both had existed at the same time and dated them to 8500 B.C., a controversial theory. Later studies showed he was in the correct range for the animal bones, but badly mistaken about the human artifacts, which were dated to 900-400 B.C. His dating for another site at Tule Springs
Tule Springs
Tule Springs in Las Vegas, Nevada, is one of the larger urban retreats in the Las Vegas Valley. It is a significant desert ecosystem consisting of a series of small lakes that formed an oasis in this part of the Mojave Desert...
, near Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
, has equally been called into question. Harrington found a spear point in an apparent fire pit alongside the bones of several ancient animals, which led him to assert in a published article that they were contemporaries and that the site was between 10,000 and 25,000 years old. More recent scrutiny has put his dating in doubt, however.
In 1933, on loan from the museum, Harrington went to work for the National Park Service
National Park Service
The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...
under the Civilian Conservation Corps
Civilian Conservation Corps
The Civilian Conservation Corps was a public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men from relief families, ages 18–25. A part of the New Deal of President Franklin D...
. He directed a project to salvage as much as possible of the Pueblo Grande de Nevada
Pueblo Grande de Nevada
Pueblo Grande de Nevada, , a complex of villages located near Overton, Nevada and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.-Native american History:...
archaeological site, also known as Nevada's "Lost City," near Overton, Nevada
Overton, Nevada
Overton is an Unincorporated Town located in Clark County, Nevada. The town is on the north end of Lake Mead. The town is home to Perkins Field airport and Echo Bay Airport....
. The site was about to be destroyed by the new Lake Mead
Lake Mead
Lake Mead is the largest reservoir in the United States. It is located on the Colorado River about southeast of Las Vegas, Nevada, in the states of Nevada and Arizona. Formed by water impounded by the Hoover Dam, it extends behind the dam, holding approximately of water.-History:The lake was...
, born of the construction of Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam
Hoover Dam, once known as Boulder Dam, is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President...
. They found 17 new sites and dug until “there was literally water lapping at their boots.”
In 1947, Harrington learned from a friend of an ancient site located about 160 miles northeast of Los Angeles that contained artifacts attributed to the Pinto Culture, believed to have existed in the area as early as 3000 B.C. Harrington excavated the location—dubbed the Stahl site for the composer Willy Stahl, its discoverer—for at least the next two years. During this time, on September 20, 1948, Edna died. He married a third time, to author Marie Toma Walsh, in April of the following year. Harrington published his report on the Stahl site in 1957.
Harrington retired from the Southwest Museum in 1964. He died in 1971 and is buried at the San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Mission Hills.