This volume fulfils a long-felt need in south Asian studies by initiating an inter-disciplinary dialogue between archaeology and history. It challenges traditional assumptions derived from text-based archaeology dating to the Alexander Cunningham era and re-examines the role of archives, monumental architecture and artifacts in the reconstruction of the past.
The first section draws attention to two emerging trends in the study of the past; one, the use of archival data for a study of the history of archaeology in south Asia, and two, the question of representation and public archaeology. The second sectioin discusses scientific methods and techniques that have been significant in recent years in providing inputs to questions of chronology and sourcing of metal objects. Recent research stresses the identification of general patterns of human behaviour and their material consequences, which may be recognizable in thearchaeological record, as discussed in the third section on Ethno-archaeology. The issue of multivocality of religiouis structures and negotiations between different groups is highlighted in the fourth section, while the final section discusses Gender Archaeology and indicates archaeological constructs in an analysis of the theme.
The volume thus endorses an active involvement between Archaeology and History. It is hoped that this will then lead to increased inputs in the study and pracrtice of archaeology.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Carla M. Sinopoli
Carla M. Sinopoli is Professor, Department of Anthropology and Curator of Asian Archaeology, Museum of anthropology, University of Michigan. Her publications include approaches to Archaeological Ceramics, Plenum Press, New York's London, 1991; Pots and Palaces: The Earthenware Ceramics of the Noblemen's Quarter of Vijayanagara, Manohar, 1993; The Political Economy of Crafts Production: Crafting Empire in India, Cambridge University Press, 2003. She has also edited The Archaeological Correlates of Hunter Gatherer Socieities (with F. Smilety et.al.), 1980 and Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History (with Susan E. Alcock et al.), Cambridge University Press, 2001.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Himanshu Prabha Ray
Himanshu Prabha Ray is associate Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, where she has taught since 1980. Her publications include Monastery and Guild: Commerce under the Satavahanas, Oxford University Press, 1986; The Winds Change: Buddhism and the Maritime Links of Early south Asia, Oxford University Press, 1994 (reissued as Oxford India Paperbacks, 1998); The Archaeology off Seafariing in Ancient South Asia, Cambridge University Press, 2003. In 1996, she jointly edited with Jean-Ffrancois Salles a volume titled, Tradition and Archaeology: Early Maritime Contacts in the Indian Ocean, Manohar, 1996. another volume Archaeology of Seafaring: The Indian Ocean in the ancient Period, was published in the Indian Council of Historical Research Monograph Series I, New Delhi, 1999.
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