The lives and practices of present-day inhabitants of the Hampi region have offered many hints as to the possible technical and economic as well as social and cultural patterns of the Vijayanagara period. Project members undertook ethnoarchaeological and ethnological investigations that aimed to contribute to the interpretation of the archaeological record. These investigations concentrated on the villages around the site that were once suburban settlements in the Vijayanagara capital as well as the village of Hampi.

Carla Sinopoli and Laura L. Junker investigated the manufacture of earthenware ceramics in the village of Kamalapura, a study that complimented Sinopoli’s study of ceramics excavated from the Noblemen’s Quarter and collected from the surface of other areas of the site. (See Project Publications) In another technical study, Lars Fogelin, a member of the Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey, examined brick manufacturing in Malpannagudi.

Asim Krishna Das developed an interest in contemporary ritual practices and before his death completed a study on the chariot festival at Hampi, as observed over successive years. Papers by Fogelin and Das are included in Vijayanagara: Archaeological Excavation, 1900-2000. (See Project Publications)

The anthropologist Natalie Tobert and illustrator Graham Reed documented the material culture of Anegondi, emphasising the form, contents and social context of village houses. Their analysis of vernacular architecture, the first for this part of Karnataka, is accompanied by revealing cut-away drawings. (See Project Publications)

Daniel Bass, while working with the Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey, conducted an unusual survey focusing on present-day tourist patterns in the Vijayanagara area. He interviewed visitors to Hampi, finding contrasts between the perceptions of the Vijayanagara site by “hippies,” foreigners on package tours, and middle-class Indian tourists. He completed a master’s paper on the subject at the University of Michigan.

Stian Krog, then a graduate student in the Department of Social Anthropology, at the University of Bergan, Norway, spent five months studying the relationship to space and place among Hampi residents. He completed a Master’s Thesis entitled '‘Living Homes and Dead Monuments; Cultural Heritage and the Construction of Space and Place in Hampi, India'' 'http://www.uib.no/povertypolitics/Living%20Homes%20and%20 Dead%20Monuments.Stian%20Krog.pdf