The department of »Historical Archaeology« conducts fundamental research with a focus on the Greek and Roman cultural spheres with neither a chronological nor a geographical limitation. The numerous national and international projects of the Institute are distinguished by interdisciplinary field research, and the study of primary sources as well as their cultural-historical evaluation. Under the premise of understanding historical cultures in their entirety, the focus lies on the one hand on the investigation of urban and rural settlement spaces from historical, topographical, architectonic, economic, social and ecological perspectives; in this manner, landscapes and spaces beyond the individual settlements are also examined. On the other hand, studies of objects and monuments situate humans as actors, as well as their products, in the central focus.