Profile for Dru McGill
Dru McGill- PhD track in Archaeology and Social Context, with inside major of Archaeology and outside minor in Cultural Property Law; area interest in North American archaeology.
As an undergraduate at Boston University, I developed interests in cultural property law and the trading of antiquities under the study of my advisor, Dr. Ricardo Elia. When I graduated from BU in 2003, I decided to come to Indiana University (IU) in order to study in a unique PhD track called Archaeology and Social Context, under the advising of Dr. Anne Pyburn.
Currently, my primary research interests are in the intersections between archaeology, ethics, law, and the public. From these topics, I have developed interests in performances of nationalism, identity, cultural biographies of artifacts and material culture in general. At IU, I study cultural property laws, the illicit and licit antiquities market, museum ethics and collecting practices, and archaeological ethics in the hope of promoting the stewardship of archaeological sites and the archaeological record. I am pursuing these interests by taking classes in intellectual and cultural property at the IU law school and from Dr. Jason Jackson in the Folklore department.
My previous research has included quantitative analyses of archaeological objects in museums, as well as studies of the history of collecting and displaying archaeological objects. In terms of applied archaeology, I have done fieldwork in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Belize. Most recently, I have been helping with the Hovey Lake site at Hovey Lake, Indiana. The project director, Cheryl Munson, and I are converting the site to GIS format and participating in public outreach events in the area. For more information on Hovey Lake archaeology, or to read about upcoming public archaeology events, see http://www.indiana.edu/~archaeo/hovey/hl-ts.htm
As a member of the Center for Archaeology in the Public Interest, I have participated in other public archaeology events in Indiana, as well. These have included: educating and entertaining the public during Indiana Archaeology Month events, giving undergraduate lectures on archaeological ethics and cultural property law, participating in last two years of Society for American Archaeology Ethics Bowls, and helping with Discovering Archaeology day at the Mathers Museum.
Recently, I have developed an interest in studying the multiple modern contexts of archaeological resources and practice through ethnography. I believe archaeological resources act as a sort of cultural commons, through which certain groups identify part of their identity. I plan to pursue this interest by performing an ethnography of a North American town closely affiliated with an archaeological site. I will be looking for “systems of heritage”-- or the various contexts (political, educational, economic, etc.) in a community where archaeology influences identity. It is my hope to pursue this interest as my dissertation fieldwork, beginning the summer of 2006.
Attempting a soil core at Fieldwork in Belize Travel in Belize with (from left) Jenna Los
Hovey Lake, Indiana (I'm on top) and Alicia Ebbitt