Curator of Asian Archaeology; Professor, Department of Anthropology (Emerita)
About
Research interests: Political economy; craft production; material culture; archaeology of states and empires; South Asia; Southeast Asia
Carla M. Sinopoli is curator emerita of Asian Archaeology and Ethnology and professor emerita of anthropology at the University of Michigan. Her archaeological survey and excavation projects along the Tungabhadra River in South India examined the political economy of the 2nd millennium CE imperial capital of Vijayanagara and emergent complexity in the first millennium BCE Iron Age. Sinopoli 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 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.
Affiliation(s)
- Director of the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, University of New Mexico
- Curator Emerita of Asian Archaeology and Ethnology, Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, University of Michigan
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
