University of Calgary

Faculty Member, Archaeology

About

I am Professor of Archaeology at the University of Calgary, where I am currently enjoying a year-long sabbatical.  My three major research areas are Central Mexico, Central America, and Identity (especially gender and ethnicity).  I am currently directing archaeological excavations in Pacific Nicaragua where we are investigating Mesoamerican colonization of the region in the centuries prior to the Spanish conquest.

Cholula was a major ceremonial center in the highlands of central Mexico.  It is arguably the oldest continuously occupied city in the Americas, and its Great Pyramid is the largest in the world.  I have concentrated my research on Cholula since I began graduate work at the Universidad de las Américas (in Cholula) in the early 1980s.  My MA thesis considered ethnohistorical and archaeological evidence for Postclassic ethnicity at the site, and my PhD dissertation involved a holistic analysis of a residential complex and associated artifacts dating to the Early Postclassic period.  Since that time I have published eighteen articles, a monograph, and an extensive webpage (www.arky.ucalgary.ca/mccafferty/cholula) on Cholula, dealing with such diverse topics as ceramics, monumental architecture, domestic ritual, ethnicity, mortuary patterns, and textile production. 


When I moved to Calgary in 1999 I began a new research topic involving pre-Columbian migrations of Mesoamerican groups to lower Central America, specifically the Greater Nicoya region of Pacific Nicaragua and northwestern Costa Rica.  The traditional foundation for this migration is based on ethnohistorical accounts, historical linguistics, and art historical interpretations of the polychrome pottery from the region.  Since one of the alleged points of origin for the migration was Postclassic Cholula, this theme is a logical extension of my Mexican research.  And since the archaeological interpretation of ethnicity has been a longstanding interest, research in Nicaragua allows an outstanding opportunity to explore Mesoamerican identities in a ‘borderlands’ context.  In 2002 I received a three-year Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (of Canada) grant to excavate at the site of Santa Isabel (Nicaragua), the suspected capital of Chief Nicaragua at the moment of Spanish contact.  In 2007 I received a second grant for three more years to move up the coast of Lake Nicaragua to the Granada region.  In 2008 we excavated at the site of Tepetate, the ancient capital of the Chorotega polity, and in 2009 we moved to a second tier site to investigate a subject community of the same chiefdom.  I have already published eleven articles and an extensive webpage (www.arky.ucalgary.ca/mccafferty/santa-isabel) on the Nicaragua work, and am currently preparing two edited volumes on related themes.

The research theme for which I am best known relates to gender relations in the prehispanic world.  This line of investigation originated with collaborative research (with Sharisse) on textile production, but since spinning and weaving were closely related to female identity and ideology we soon moved into more theoretically charged realms.  Some of our more prominent publications discuss Tomb 7 at Monte Albán, the Battle Murals of Cacaxtla, textile imagery in the Mixtec codices, figurines from Greater Nicoya, engenderment in Cholula burial contexts, and alternative gender identities.  Our gender research on Tomb 7 fueled heated debate in the journal Current Anthropology (1994), and I have been an invited speaker at numerous international conferences since then. Gender research in archaeology remains controversial, and resonates very well with undergraduate students since it provides a nice linkage with larger anthropological issues as well as lived experience.

I am currently editor of the journal Ancient Mesoamerica, the leading scholarly journal of our field (see also www.ancientmesoamerica.net ).  I am also organizing symposia on the history of Central American archaeology for the upcoming conference of the Society for American Archaeology, and another on the legacy of Canadian researchers in Mesoamerican studies for the meeting of the Canadian Archaeological Association.

Contact Information