Carla Sinopoli is Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Anthropology and Director of the Museum of Anthropology, where she is also Curator of Asian Archaeology. Her research focuses on complex societies and political economy in Southern India. She is currently co-directing a multi-year archaeological field project in the Tungabhadra River Valley of South India, focusing on emergent social and economic inequalities and the formation to territorial polities during the South India Iron Age (first millennium BC). Her prior work in the area included a 10-year systematic regional survey of the hinterland of the 14th-16th c AD imperial capital of Vijayanagara, where she focused particularly on examining the relations of imperial and temples institutions in the control and organization of craft production. As curator of the Museum of Anthropology’s extensive collections from Asia, Sinopoli is conducting research and publishing on material culture and trade in South and Southeast Asian history and prehistory.
2001 - Empires: Comparatives Perspectives from Archaeology and History. Co- edited with Susan E. Alcock, Terence N. D'Altroy and Kethleen D. Morrison. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press
2003 - The Political Economy of Craft Production: Crafting Empire in South India, c. 1350-1650. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
2003 - Echoes of Empire: Vijayanagara and historical memory, Vijayanagara as historical memory. In, Archaeologies of Memory, edited by Ruth Van Dyke and Susan E. Alcock, pp. 17-33. Blackwell Publishers, Massachusetts.
2004 - Archaeology as History: South Asia, co-edited with Himanshu P. Ray. Indian Council for Historical Research and Aryan Books, New Delhi.
2005 - Wrapped in Beauty: The Koelz Collection of Kashmir Shawls. By Grace Beardsley in collaboration with Carla M. Sinopoli. Anthropological Paper, 93. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan.
2006 - Regional survey at Vijayanagara, South Asia: New World methodologies in Old World contexts. In, Settlement, Subsistence and Social Complexity: Essays Honoring the Legacy of Jeffrey R. Parsons, ed. by Richard E. Blanton. Cotsen Institute, University of California, Los Angeles.
