Christopher Watts

Office:  PAS 2010

Phone: 519-888-4567 x36925

Email:  c3watts@uwaterloo.ca

Background

Christopher Watts (BA, Trent; MSc, PhD, Toronto) is an archaeologist with interests in place-making, materiality, artworks, and relational ontologies, particularly among the Woodland Period (ca. CE 1-1550) cultural traditions of the lower Great Lakes. Informed by contemporary social and archaeological theory, as well as Indigenous collaboration and scholarship, his research highlights how Woodland people, places, and things emerged in tandem with one another through various contextually dependent associations. In this vein, he is concerned with developing archaeological approaches that attend to such processes, be they at work in the materialization of sites, features, or assemblages.

Prior to joining the Department, Dr. Watts held postdoctoral fellowships at the Royal Ontario Museum and the University of Western Ontario, and worked as an archaeologist in both the commercial and regulatory sectors. His past research has explored the agentive/animistic qualities of ceramic artifacts, notions of food collection vs. production, and the experiential aspects of longhouse life among Ontario Iroquoian groups. Currently, his research focuses on Woodland Period earthen enclosures in southwestern Ontario, including field investigations in Essex Co., while his collections-based projects centre on Iroquoian animal effigy pipes and an 'aesthetics of brilliance' in Iroquoian shell, copper, and glass trade beads.

Dr. Watts welcomes students who are interested in pursuing graduate studies as part of Waterloo’s MA in Public Issues Anthropology. See here for more information.

Some of the courses Dr. Watts teaches include:

ANTH 201             Introduction to Archaeology

ANTH 309             Archaeology of North America

ANTH 322             Archaeology of the Great Lakes Area

ANTH 372             Archaeological Field School

ANTH 415             Archaeologies of Landscape

ANTH 489             The Lives of Things (formerly ANTH 400)
 

Recent Publications

Watts, C. M. (n.d.) Presence and Methexis in Iroquoian Animal Effigy Pipes. RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics (submitted).

Watts, C. M. (2018a) Counter-monuments and the Perdurance of Place. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 28(3):379-393.

Watts, C. M. (2018b) Theorizing Materiality. Canadian Journal of Archaeology 42:92-100.

Watts, C. M. (2016) Recent Investigations at the Cedar Creek Earthworks (AaHq-2), Essex County, Ontario. Midcontinental Journal of Archaeology 41(1):1-25.

Watts, C. M. (ed.) (2013) Relational Archaeologies: Humans, Animals, Things. Routledge, New York.

Watts, C. M., C. White and F. J. Longstaffe (2011) Childhood Diet and Western Basin Tradition Foodways at the Krieger Site, Southwestern Ontario, Canada. American Antiquity 76(3):446-472.