Castro Professor

Olivia C. Navarro-Farr

Olivia C. Navarro-Farr is a Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology and the Chair of the Program in Archaeology at the College of Wooster. She holds a B.A. from St. Mary’s University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Southern Methodist University.

She teaches courses in archaeology, anthropology, and ancient Mesoamerica. She has worked in the Maya area since 1997 on archaeological projects in Belize, Mexico, and Guatemala and she has served as director of the Proyecto Arqueológico Waka’ (PAW) with David Del Cid of San Carlos University of Guatemala and Damien Marken of The Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania since 2017. She began working on that project as a graduate student in 2003.  Dr. Navarro-Farr has published in various academic archaeology and anthropology journals, including Latin American Antiquity, Feminist Anthropology, Ancient Mesoamerica, and she has numerous chapters in various edited volumes.

She is also co-editor (with Michelle Rich) of Archaeology at El Perú -Waka’: Performances of Ritual, Memory, and Power detailing research at ancient El Perú -Waka’. She has directed investigations at Waka’s primary civic-ceremonial structure since 2003.

Her interests include the archaeology of ritual, monumental architecture, site abandonment processes, Classic Period Maya (~250-850 CE) politics, and the role of royal women in Classic Maya statecraft.