Kiel University - Cluster of Excellence ROOTS

Archaeology,Human Environmental Interaction,Climate Change,Ancient DNA,Migration,Settlements

Kiel University is one of the major centres for interdisciplinary archaeological research in Germany.

Kiel archaeology is active not only in Germany but across the globe, undertaking projects in Scandinavia, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe, the Iberian Peninsula, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, Anatolia, India, South Africa, and Iran, among other regions, in collaboration with local partner institutions.

The Cluster of Excellence ROOTS – Social, Environmental, and Cultural Connectivity in Past Societies - works within a broad interdisciplinary framework, firmly believing that humans and the environment have strongly impacted each other, thereby creating socio-ecological relationships that still exist today. Integrating several neighbouring disciplines into archaeological research, for example geophysics or the analysis of ancient DNA, the ROOTS’ research projects address crucial questions of today’s societies from a historic perspective:

·        How did our ancestors cope with crisis?

·        How did social inequality develop?

·        Were there interactions between social, environmental, and climate changes?

Also, Kiel University in partnership with the “Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis” (CfAS) has recently become host to the first European Center for Collaborative Synthesis in Archaeology (CCSA), an international hub to coordinate the consolidation of archaeological data, theories and methods through projects into an overall picture of the human past.