Principal investigator
Daniela De Simone is an archaeologist and Assistant Professor in South Asian Archaeology in the Department of Languages and Cultures at Ghent University. Previously, she was Curator of the South Asian Archaeological Collections at the British Museum, where she curated the current displays of South Asian archaeological materials, Assistant Programme Specialist at UNESCO New Delhi, where she worked on the sustainable conservation of Indian old city areas, and Excavation Supervisor at the site of Gotihawa, an important early Buddhist stupa site in the Nepalese Terai, for the Italian Institute of Africa and the Orient (IsIAO). She studied South Asian Languages and Cultures (she speaks Hindi and reads Sanskrit) at “L’Orientale,” University of Naples where she earned her PhD in South Asian Studies (Archaeology) in 2012.
Daniela’s research focuses on the historical archaeology of Indian forests, the history of Indian Buddhism through the study of material culture, and the archaeology of the Gangetic Plains in the proto-historical and early historical period. She is also Principal Investigator of the projects Excavations at Bodhgaya, the Site of the Buddha’s Enlightenment (2021-2024), funded by the Shelby White and Leon Levy Program for Archaeological Publications at Harvard University, and Archaeological Explorations and Investigations in the Gangetic Plains and Neighbouring Regions (2021-2025), funded by Ghent University Special Research Fund (BOF).
Daniela started studying the material cultural of the Nilgiri Mountains when she was Curator at the British Museum (2016-2020) and included a public display of Nilgiri materials in the permanent exhibition on South Asia of the Sir Joseph E. Hotung Gallery of China and South Asia (re-opened 2017), giving substantial space to the Nilgiri culture in the wider context of Indian civilisation. She first surveyed the Nilgiri Mountains in 2018.
Daniela De Simone’s list of publications.
Postdoctoral researchers
Letizia Trinco holds a PhD (2015) in history of art and archaeology of South and Central Asia from the Italian Institute of Oriental Studies, Sapienza University of Rome, where she also obtained her BA (2006) and MA (2010) in South Asian Languages and Cultures.
She participated in the Uzbek-Italian Archaeological Mission to the site of Uch Kulakh, in the oasis of Bukhara, Uzbekistan (2009), and carried out fieldwork in India as a doctoral student, research collaborator and postdoctoral fellow at Sapienza University of Rome (2013-2019). Her research focuses on funerary monuments in ancient South Asia (in particular the so-called hero-stones), religious iconography, and environmental history.
For the Nilgiri Archaeological Project, she examines the archaeological context and iconography of dolmens and hero-stones in order to detect subregional variations, establish their chronology and clarify their relation with akin structures in the neighbouring lowlands.
She will also study the Hortus Indicus Malabaricus (1678-1693) and other early botanical treatises to search for notions of Traditional Ecological Knowledge from the Western Ghats in the early colonial records.
Research partners
CENTRAL UNIVERSITY OF KARNATAKA (CUK)
Arjun Rao is an archaeologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of History and Archaeology of the Central University of Karnataka. Arjun’s research focuses on Indian prehistory and landscape archaeology, particularly in the semi-arid and of tropical savanna regions of Karnataka.
Arjun is Principal Investigator of several archaeological projects: the Koppa Archaeological Research Project (KARP) funded by the National Geographic (2017-2018), Rediscovery of Prehistoric Sites of Raichur, Karnataka at the Ancient India and Iran Trust, Cambridge funded by the Nehru Trust for the Indian Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum (2019-18 and 2019-2020), Survey and Mapping of the Fortified Settlements of Ancient South Kosala, Chhattisgarh funded by the Luigi and Laura Dallapiccola Foundation (2021-2022), and Stone Tool Economy and Resources Use in Raichur Doab funded by the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi (2022-ongoing).
For the Nilgiri Archaeological Project, Arjun co-leads the exploration team. He also investigates the built and natural landscape and ancient land use strategies in the Nilgiri Mountains, and records the megalithic practices in the region.
Arjun is Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of Archaeological Research in India and East Asia Regional Representative for Past Global Changes (PAGES).
Arjun Rao’s list of publications
Deepak Pal is a doctoral student in the Department of History and Archaeology at the Central University of Karnataka. His doctoral research is titled “Early Urbanisation in the Deccan Plateau (300 BCE–400 CE): Trajectories of Settlements, Ashokan Rock Edicts, and Buddhism” (Supervisor: Dr. Arjun Rao).
He earned a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Ancient Indian History, Culture, and Archaeology from Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and a Master of Arts in History from the University of Hyderabad.
In June 2023, he participated in the Tulukkarpatti excavation conducted by the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology. Currently, he is also serving as a Field Assistant in the archaeological research projects titled “Stone Tool Economy and Resource Use in the Raichur Doab, Karnataka” and “Maski Early Medieval Archaeological Surveys (MEAS),” led by Dr. Arjun Rao.
In the Nilgiri Archaeological Project, Deepak is engaged in the archaeological survey of the Nilgiris by assisting in field documentation and recording data.
FRENCH INSTITUTE OF PONDICHERRY (IFP)
Anupama Krishnamurti is a palynologist and palaeoecologist in the Department of Ecology at the French Institute of Pondicherry. Her research focuses on palaeovegetation reconstruction and pollination ecology and aerobiology employing pollen grains as key tools. Her expertise also includes non-pollen palynomorphs such as phytoliths in archaeological and other contexts in South India. Her team is currently building a repertory of phytolith slides from extant plants in tropical South India and Sri Lanka along the lines of the Thanikaimoni pollen slide collection held at the Institute, and she is a member of the research project Protection of Pollinators and Agroecological Transition in the Pondicherry Region (POLLIN).
In the framework of the Nilgiri Archaeological Project, Anupama supervises a team of archaeobotanists based in South India that works towards the reconstruction of the early ecology of the upland forests of the Nilgiri Mountains and the traditional use of plant materials before the colonial period.
Anupama is President of the Humans and Biosphere Commission of the International Union for Quaternary Research (INQUA) and a member of the working group LandCover6K of the Past Global Changes (PAGES) initiative.
Prasad Srinivasan is a Quaternary Palynologist at the French Institute of Pondicherry with an experience of more than thirty years in the field.
He has a proven expertise in light microscopic pollen identification of modern and Quaternary sediments. He is quite well versed and trained in field and laboratory techniques, and has a strong footing in the Nilgiris where he literally began his career as a Palynologist.
Prasad is actively involved in many national and international training programmes and interacts with students and researchers on issues pertaining to pollen identification as also pollen-vegetation relationship.
NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES (NIAS)
Sharada Srinivasan is an archaeometallurgist and Professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru specialising in the history of mining, metallurgy, metal crafts, technical art history and architectural history of southern India. Her inter-disciplinary contributions cover the archaeometallurgy of South Indian and Chola metal icons and artisanal technologies such as wootz steel, mirror making, and high-tin bronze working as well as broader global dimensions.
She has been documenting aspects of the material culture, archaeotechnology and ethnography of the Nilgiris for three decades with related papers in South Asian Archaeology (1994), INSA (2016), MMP (2017), in ’50 Years of Archaeology in Southeast Asia’, Lietuvos Archaeology 47 (2022), and in a volume in press edited by Paul Hockings. Her recent papers include ‘Re-envisioning Siva Nataraja’ (Brill), ‘Retellings of the Ramayana in South India and Southeast Asia’ (Manipal), ‘Ecstasy of Classical Art’ (National Museum), ‘Traditional Arts of South Asia’ (Saffron Press) and ‘Materialising Southeast Asia’s Past’ (NUS). She is co-editor of ‘Digital Hampi’ (Springer) and ‘Performance at the Urban Periphery’ (Routledge), and co-author of ‘India’s Legendary Wootz Steel’. A complete list of her publications can be found here.
She was co-lead investigator of the UKIERI Pioneering Metallurgy project in collaboration with Exeter University.
Sharada is recipient of the Padma Shri in 2019 in Archaeology and the Indian National Academy of Engineering Woman Engineer Award in 2021. She was elected as International Honorary Member of American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2021. She is Fellow of Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
S. Udayakumar is an ethnoarchaeologist and Assistant Professor at the School of Humanities of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangaluru, with expertise in archaeometallurgy. He holds a PhD (2016) from the Deccan College Post-Graduate & Research Institute of Pune with a study on the ancient iron technology in south-eastern Rajasthan. At the Deccan College he also obtained his BA (2005-2008) and MA (2008-2010) in Ancient Indian History.
He conducted experimental studies on ancient iron technology, bone point making techniques and pottery making techniques. He has attended various excavations and explorations (Farmana in Haryana, Kotada-Bhabli in Gujarat, Teri and Keeladi in Tamil Nadu), published papers in numerous journals and presented his results at national and international conferences. He is the recipient of many awards and scholarships (among the others: 2012 and 2016 Nehru Trust Small Study Research Grant, New Delhi; 2015 and 2019 Tylecote Memorial Fund from the Historical Metallurgical Society, UK; 2017 INTACH Research Scholarship Award; 2021 Liverpool and INSA Young Historian for Science Award).
Within the Nilgiri Archaeological Project, Udayakumar carries out ethnoarchaeological research on Kota pottery, and conducts experimental archaeology research on the metal and ceramic production related to the project.
UNIVERSITY OF HYDERABAD
N. Ramesh is an ethnolinguist and Associate Professor at the Centre for Applied Linguistics and Translation Studies at the University of Hyderabad. His research focuses on tribal linguistics, with a particular emphasis on the Toda language, as well as issues of language endangerment and documentation. Ramesh has conducted extensive fieldwork among the Toda people, contributing significantly to the study and preservation of their language and culture. He holds a PhD in Linguistics from Bharathiar University.
A member of the Badaga community, an indigenous ethnic group of the Nilgiris, Ramesh brings unique insight into the cultural and linguistic heritage of this region. As part of the Nilgiri Archaeological Project, he leads a team dedicated to documenting the oral histories of the Todas and Kotas, two of the Nilgiri Mountains’ indigenous communities, helping to preserve and understand their rich linguistic and cultural traditions. Ramesh’s research focuses on indigenous concepts of space and time.
Research consultants
C. Gomathi is an experienced educator and linguist with a deep-rooted background in the linguistic heritage of her community. Currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Linguistics at Bharathiar University, she holds a Master’s degree in Computational Linguistics. As a member of the Kota community, an indigenous ethnic group of theNilgiris, Gomathi brings a unique perspective to her research. Recently, alongside S. Arul Dayanand, she published the chapter “Ethnolinguistic Study of The Kota Tribe: Cultural Practices and Language Structure in The Nilgiri Hills” in Contemporary World Literature: A Global Perspective (Vijayawada: Blue Ava Ford Publications, 2024). A native speaker of Kota and proficient in Tamil and English, Gomathi will contribute to the Nilgiri Archaeological Project, where her research will focus on ethnolinguistic dimensions and traditional craft production among the Kota people.
Ananya Vajpeyi is a fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi. She works at the intersection of intellectual history, political theory and critical philology. She is the author of the award-winning book, Righteous Republic: The Political Foundations of Modern India published by Harvard University Press (2012), as well as the co-editor of Minorities and Populism: Critical Perspectives from South Asia and Europe (Springer, 2020) and Ashis Nandy: A Life in Dissent (OUP, 2018). She is currently working on Sanskrit: The Modern Life of an Ancient Language to be published by Norton, and has a long-term book project on the life and ideas of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.
Ananya was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University (India and Exeter College; 1994-96). She has been a fellow at CRASSH, Cambridge University; the Kluge Center, Library of Congress; the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, and the American Institute of Indian Studies, among others. She writes widely about ideas, politics, history, art and culture for newspapers and magazines in India and abroad. She wrote her doctoral dissertation in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago (2004). Titled “Politics of Complicity, Poetics of Contempt: A History of the Śūdra in Maharashtra, 1650-1950 CE”, this work necessitated archival research and extensive fieldwork in many parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka.
Ananya joined the Nilgiri Archaeological Project in May 2023 as a textual and historical consultant. She contributes perspectives of how forest-dwellers, “tribals” and other marginal groups have been represented in Sanskrit literature, particularly in the epics. The Nilgiri Archaeological Project is her first foray into the Western Ghats and the Nilgiri uplands of Tamil Nadu. She also contributes her understanding of the precolonial history of the Deccan Plateau, as well as a critical reading of the colonial disciplines of anthropology and linguistics in the characterisation of tribal communities and subaltern cultures across British India.