Michael John Rowlands (born 1944) is a retired British academic and anthropologist.
He was Professor of Anthropology and Material Culture at University College London from 1993 to 2010.
Rowlands graduated from the University of London with a BSc in anthropology and went on complete a PhD there.
He was appointed Lecturer in Anthropology at University College London (UCL) in 1973 and was promoted to a readership in 1982, after which he was Professor of Anthropology and Material Culture at UCL from 1993 to 2010.
Since retiring in 2010, Rowlands has been an emeritus professor and senior research fellow at UCL; since 2012, he has also been an honorary professor at the UCL Institute of Archaeology.