The village at NAN Ranch exists in two distinct archaeological layers, neither occupied simultaneously. The earlier level, dating from roughly 850 to 1000 CE, consists of sixteen pit-houses dug into the terrace above the Mimbres River. These semi-subterranean dwellings, accessed by ladder through roof openings, sheltered families during the Three Circle phase when the Mimbrenos were transitioning from mobile hunter-gatherers to settled farmers dependent on maize cultivation. Above this older settlement lies the Classic period village, dating from around 1108 CE, consisting of three room blocks containing over 100 rooms built of cobble masonry. The East Room Block contained a large rectangular ceremonial room, sturdily constructed with double walls, serving a purpose similar to the kivas of later Puebloan peoples. The South Room Block, where forty individuals were buried beneath the central room floor, housed people of clear prestige and status.

Mimbres pottery stands among the most distinctive prehistoric artwork in the Americas. The characteristic black-on-white designs evolved from earlier red-on-white patterns, featuring geometric patterns, animals, humans, and mythological scenes painted with remarkable precision. At NAN Ranch, seventy-five percent of recovered pottery was originally made for cooking and food preparation, only later repurposed as burial offerings. Less than one percent of ceramic fragments showed evidence of trade, suggesting the Mimbrenos produced nearly everything they needed locally. The artwork reveals clear social divisions. Women, identifiable by their painted aprons with hanging strings, appear as child caregivers, potters, and carriers of hunted game. Men wear three distinct hairstyles, make baskets, farm, and fish. Women are often depicted alone while men always appear in groups. Ceremonial imagery featuring authority figures shows more men than women, hinting at a complex social hierarchy.

The 222 human burials excavated at NAN Ranch reveal intimate details about Mimbreno life and death. Ninety percent were interred indoors, beneath room floors, while the outdoor burials were overwhelmingly male. Men received jewelry and ceramics as grave goods; women received only ceramics. Children, curiously, were often buried with the largest quantities of offerings. The skeletal remains speak of hard lives. Women showed higher rates of osteoarthritis in their elbows and neck vertebrae, likely from the repetitive labor of grinding corn on metates hour after hour. Evidence of anemia appeared in over a third of the population, manifesting as pitting in cranial bones, probably caused by a low-iron maize diet or parasites. Yet despite clear status differences visible in burials and housing, there was no corresponding difference in overall health between high and low status individuals. The Mimbrenos apparently shared their food stress equally.

The transition from scattered pit-houses to the centralized NAN Ranch village was driven by a fundamental challenge: water management. As the community grew more dependent on cultivated maize and squash, they needed canals and reservoirs to ensure reliable irrigation. Building and maintaining such infrastructure required coordinated labor, drawing families together from remote homesteads into a single settlement. The village location, on a terrace above the Mimbres River in semi-arid grassland south of pinyon-juniper woodland, offered ideal agricultural conditions with a long growing season and reliable water. Villagers supplemented their crops with gathered foods including agave, prickly pear, pinon nuts, and walnuts. They hunted jackrabbits and cottontails in the valleys and ventured into higher elevations for elk, bear, and deer.

Around 1140 CE, the Mimbrenos abandoned the NAN Ranch and the entire Mimbres Valley. They left no explanation, but dental analysis of their remains offers a clue. The teeth of NAN Ranch inhabitants closely resemble those of later populations in the Chihuahuan and Sonoran Deserts to the south. When the Mimbrenos walked away from their carefully built villages, they may have traveled south to help populate the great center at Casas Grandes in present-day Chihuahua. Harriet and C.B. Cosgrove first excavated here in 1926 and 1927, and when Harry J. Shafer of Texas A&M University began systematic work in the 1970s at the invitation of the Hinton family landowners, his team would spend twenty-five years uncovering these stories. The NAN Ranch was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988, preserving a site that bridges the gap between the Mogollon culture and the later peoples of the desert Southwest.