Historical reconstructions of the Arabian Peninsula's past cultures have for long remained dependent on exogenous sources. The systematic investigation of specific topics linked to the study area itself now may contribute to its consolidation from an endogenous perspective.

The scientific perspective is to focus on human strategies of adaptation, mobility, and use of resources in an altering climate and environment. Excavations, soundings, surveys, and scientific sampling accordingly prepare the broad groundwork for analysis and evaluation.

In order to achieve the objectives, field research is carried out at relevant settlement sites and their surrounding archaeological landscapes. Fieldwork was thus begun in the Tayma oasis, einem bedeutenden wirtschaftlichen und kulturellen Standort Nordwestarabiens, in einer hyperariden Klimazone an der Schnittstelle der Kontinente Afrika und Asien.

An elementary conceptual component for the achievement of the targets was the development and implementation of long-term strategies for cultural preservation.

Bio-geochemical and palynological multiproxy probing on sediments from Lake Tayma have been able to date the beginnings of oasis cultivation there to around 4,800 BC, possibly subsequent to a short Holocene humid period in the region around 6,000 BC. A period during which wine and figs were cultivated, presumably by non- or semi-sedentary populations, was followed by one of cultivation of fruit trees and crops. The geo-hydrological conditions at Tayma ensured that people could benefit from artesian groundwater accessed in wells. It is currently being investigated whether the early, so-called technological kit also included artificial irrigation of cultivated lands.

Walled oases enclosing agricultural lands are attested to in North-western Arabia as from the EBA. Current discussions are concerned with the social organisation of oases with reference to urbanisation. A permanent settlement of a ceramic-producing population has been authenticated at Tayma  since the end of the 4^th millennium BC. A large building there has been seen to represent a collective storage facility. Shortly after this time a wall was built around the 9 km² large oasis.

More detailed investigations at the settlement mound of Tell Saq are now concerned with the possibility of the existence of a decentralised, in other words multipolar settlement system in the oasis of al-Ula during the Bronze Age. This latter site has produced evidence of settlement remains and grain cultivation since the 3^rd millennium BC.

The evidence furthermore points to continuous contacts between the region and its neighbouring areas since the Late Neolithic. Disc-shaped carnelian beads produced on an industrial scale at Tayma around 4,000 BC seem to have spread as far as the Persian-Arabian Gulf. The Bronze Age cemeteries at the oasis point to a widespread use of communal practices comprising status weapons of the Levantine type.

Analyses on recovered metal objects point to the participation of North-western Arabian oases in the copper trade between the Eastern Mediterranean and the Oman Peninsula. Land-based long-distance trade with aromatics at the end of the Bronze Age, however, depended on the domestication of the single-humped dromedary. Cultural contacts between North-western Arabia and Egypt began in the Early Iron Age.

Whilst the military operations by the Assyrian Empire were successful only in the north and west of Northern Arabia, the Babylonian king Nabonidus managed to temporarily take control over the great oases in the Hejaz. This is mirrored by figurative representations from the 5^th century BC when the dynasty of Lihyan at Dadan ruled over Tayma. The continuity of Tayma's settlement as from the Nabataean period points to a relative political and economic stability, even though remarkable changes are observable in the public architecture dating to the late antiquity.

New discoveries from North-western Arabia shed more light on the abode of Babylon's last king, Nabonidus (556 – 539 BC). Whereas an inscribed relief stela displaying the iconography of Mesopotamian rulers as well as cuneiform texts were found in Tayma, two more rock reliefs with inscriptions representing rulers  were discovered at the oasis of al-Ha'it. Next to the symbols representing the three Babylonian astral deities, yet another one may refer to a local god. Dedicatory inscriptions by Nabonidus' troops in the vicinity of Tayma, on the other hand, are written in Taymanitic or otherwise in imperial Aramaic script.

Both archaeological excavations and a comprehensive survey are currently underway at the ruins of Qurh, an approximately 40-hectare large urban complex from the early Islamic period (ca. 9^th  – 12^th  century) located southeast of al-Ula. The project furthermore comprises the systematic recording and analysis of building remains cleared during earlier excavations with the aim to develop and assure long-term conservation measures at the site. This will contribute to the cultural preservation of an important urban landscape in the Hejaz whose cultural diversity is marked by the pilgrimage routes connecting the area with Southern Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Mecca.