Guided by overarching theoretical and methodological approaches, the staff of the RGK are conducting research on the beginnings of the Neolithic way of life in Europe, on borders, paths and interaction spaces at and in the provinces of the Roman Empire, on things as border crossers in the Roman imperial period and on the diachronic change of border zones between land and water, combining traditional research approaches such as excavations, finds and corpora with the latest prospecting methods, scientific analyses and digital archaeology approaches.

Based on sites and their landscape contextualization, the RGK investigates settlement dynamics and social structures, particularly in Central and South-Eastern Europe. Using common methodological approaches, late Neolithic to Bronze Age settlement landscapes from southern Hungary and northern Croatia via south-western Slovakia to the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, Iron Age large settlements and their resource and production landscapes as well as spatial development and production from the Iron Age to the Middle Ages in Croatia, Serbia and many other regions are being researched.

Under the heading Coping Practices and Sacred Spaces, we examine how sacred spaces are created, mediated and recognized and what role different practices and media play in the context of (de)sacralization processes. In Ireland, England, Scotland and Scandinavia, we explore this using the example of megalithic landscapes. In addition, we are investigating depositions diachronically and synchronously in various case studies. A particular focus is on the handling of bodies, the dead and their legacies, including the question of challenges and resilience.

The fourth thematic focus, Episteme in Development, is dedicated to the generation of archaeological knowledge, more precisely the further development of approaches and methods for the analysis of landscapes, objects and data as well as reflection on the history of knowledge. It thus links researchers, projects and thematic focuses of the RGK with its cooperation partners on a different level. Furthermore, it meets the demand for more transparency in knowledge production, for possible standardization of research processes and data and the explorative inclusion and (further) development of new techniques and methods, from remote sensing to the archiving of soil samples and artificial intelligence.