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Department of Archaeology

 

Biography

I was born and raised in the Santa Monica Mountains, just north of Los Angeles, California. The chaparral and oak forests offered an impeccable education in the processes of the natural world and left me deeply interested in the relationships between human beings, ecosystems, and landscapes—an interest that led me to archaeology. I am currently a PhD candidate in Archaeology (Archaeogenetics) at the University of Cambridge. I also received my MPhil in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a BA in Anthropology.  As citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, my research and academic work explores the potential for archaeology as a decolonizing practice capable of empowering Indigenous self-determination and sovereignty.

Research

  • Decolonizing Archaeology
  • Early Paleoindian Colonization of the Americas
  • Environmental DNA
  • Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act
  • Archaeogenomics
  • Tribal Sovereignty 
  • Indigenous Ontologies
  • Ethnogeography
  • Rock Art
  • Virtual Reality
  • Language Revitalization
  • Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction

Key Publications

Key publications: 
[1] Kotoula, Eleni, et al. “Computational Photography, 3-D Modeling, and Online Publication of Basketry for Cache Cave, California.” Advances in Archaeological Practice, pp. 1–16., http://doi:10.1017/aap.2019.23.

 

[2] Brendan Cassidy, Gavin Sim, David Wayne Robinson, Devlin Gandy.A Virtual Reality Platform for Analyzing Remote Archaeological Sites, Interacting with Computers, Volume 31, Issue 2, March 2019, Pages 167–176,
 
 https://doi.org/10.1093/iwc/iwz011
[3] Bedford, Clare, David Wayne Robinson and Devlin Gandy. “Emigdiano Blues: The California Indigenous Pigment Palette and an In Situ Analysis of an Exotic Colour.” Open Archaeology 4 (2018): 152-172, https://doi.org/10.1515/opar-2018-0010

 

Teaching and Supervisions

Research supervision: 

Job Titles

PhD Student in Archaeology

General Info

Not available for consultancy
Research Expertise / Fields of study: 
Paleoanthropology
Material Culture
Human Population Genetics
Artefact Analysis & Technology
Art and Iconography
Archaeological Theory
Environmental Archaeology, Geoarchaeology, and Landscape studies
Cultural Heritage
Archaeobotany

Contact Details

dag52 [at] cam.ac.uk

Affiliations

Person keywords: 
Tribal Sovereignty
Americas
Archaeogenomics
eDNA
Paleoindians
Subjects: 
Archaeology
Geographical areas: 
Americas
Periods of interest: 
Other Historical
Other Late Prehistory
Other Prehistory
Palaeolithic/Mesolithic