Carla Sinopoli

Carla M. Sinopoli is Professor of Anthropology, Curator of Asian Archaeology and Ethnology in the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, and Director of the Museum Studies Program 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 on the archaeology of empires, political economy of craft production, archaeological ceramics, South Asian archaeology, and the history of anthropological collecting in museums.  She is currently working on three book projects:Approaches to Archaeological Ceramics (second edition), Collecting the Himalayas, and a monograph on her archaeological research at the late prehistoric site of Kadebakele in southern India.

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.  She is working on two forthcoming exhibitions that will open at the Kelsey Museum of in 2016 and 2017 and feature the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology collections.

Research Areas(s)

• Archaeology of Complex Societies
• South Asia
• Southeast Asia
• Material Culture
• Museum Studies

Affiliation(s)

• Anthropology
• Museum of Anthropological Archaeology

Award(s)

• 2012-14 Member, Mellon Committee on the Future Directions of Archaeology, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University
• 2013 Visiting Scholar, Institute of History and Philology, Academic Sinica Taipei, Taiwan
• 2013 Distinguished Lecturer, Center for Archaeology, Stanford University
• 2006-2010 Senior Fellow, Michigan Society of Fellows