John Reed Swanton (1873-1958), was influenced by Franz Boas as a student, going on to get a Ph.D. at Harvard in 1900. He wrote numerous articles and created monographs of the Indians of the Southeast on everything from languages, religionbelief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe; a personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship; a set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader, social organizations, material cultureMaterial culture: all tangible objects, which are created, used, kept, and/or left behind by past and present cultures. In other words, the physical evidence of human experience. Material culture may be dwellings, pottery, tools, furniture, weapons, ornaments, art, and/or complete structures of cities. and mobility of tribes. His research became know as ethno-historystudy of cultures, populations, and groups of people from the recent past; researching through oral and personal histories, explorers' journals and diaries, writings of missionaries, traders, and travelers and mainly dealt with Native American cultures; but today ethno-history research includes maps, music, paintings, photography, folklore, oral traditions, museum collections and even the origins of place names.
