Cosgrove, Harriet, 1887–1970

Harriet Cosgrove was an archaeologist trained in the Southwestern United States. Her fascination for archeology first started when she moved to Silver City, New Mexico, in 1906 with her husband Cornelius. In 1919 the Cosgroves bought land in Grant County, New Mexico and began excavating Mimbres Valley ceramics. In the 1920s the Cosgroves met Alfred Vincent Kidder (1885–1963), at the time curator of North American Archeology at Harvard's Peabody Museum; the Cosgroves were later hired in 1924 by Harvard University's Peabody museum through the help of Kidder. The Cosgroves’ first professional archaeology endeavor was to excavate the Swarts Ruin, also known as the Swarts Ranch Ruin. They also worked at the Gila River site in New Mexico 1928-29 and at Stalling island in Georgia. The last site worked on by the Cosgroves was the Hopi Pueblo of Awatovi in Arizona. Their son Burton Cosgrove died in 1936 during the first year of the project. Harriet returned to the site in 1937 and was placed in charge of the pottery tent on the site.