About
Research interests: Political economy; craft production; material culture; archaeology of states and empires; South Asia; Southeast Asia
Carla M. Sinopoli is Curator of Asian Archaeology and Ethnology and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan. Her archaeological survey and excavation projects along the Tungabhadra River in South India examine the political economy of the 2nd millennium CE imperial capital of Vijayanagara and emergent complexity in the first millennium BCE Iron Age. Sinopoli has published widely on the archaeology of empires, political economy of craft production, archaeological ceramics, and South Asian archaeology.
As curator of the Museum’s Asian collections, Sinopoli has conducted research, published catalogs and curated museum exhibitions on archaeological, ethnographic, and photographic collections from the Indian Himalayas, China, and Southeast Asia, especially the Philippines.
Selected Publications:
2009 Sinopoli, Carla M., Johansen, P. and Morrison, K.D.
Changing cultural landscapes of the Tungabhadra Valley, South India, with Peter Johansen and Kathleen D. Morrison. In Polities and Power: Archaeological Perspectives on the Landscapes of Early States, ed. by Steven Falconer and Charles L. Redman, pp. 11–41. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
2003 Sinopoli, Carla M.
The Political Economy of Craft Production: Crafting Empire in South India, c. 1350–1650. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
2001 Alcock, Susan E, Terence N. D’Altroy, Kathleen D. Morrison, and Carla M. Sinopoli, editors.
Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
