Dr. McCann died on February 12, 2017 in Sleepy Hollow, New York at the age of 83. The first American woman to work in underwater archaeology, she did the underwater surveys in the excavations at Cosa. In 1998 she was awarded the Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Archaeological Achievement by the Archaeological Institute of America.
During her years at the American Academy, Dr. McCann was struck by the potential importance of the still untouched harbor site at Cosa. In 1965 she began the excavation of both the marshy lagoon and the submerged outer anchorage. An early believer in the value of a team approach to complex sites, Dr. McCann synthesized her collaborators' efforts in a remarkable contribution to the history of ancient technology and the economy of Republican Rome—The Roman Port and Fishery of Cosa: A Center of Ancient Trade (Princeton 1987)—awarded the AIA's James R. Wiseman Book Award for an outstanding archaeological publication in 1989 (AJA 94 [1990] 296), and the Outstanding Book Award of the American Association of University Presses for 1987. more...