By integrating theoretical, historical, and empirical approaches, the Cluster ROOTS investigates socio-environmental phenomena as evolving at different spatio-temporal scales explored in a variety of archives. The confrontation with today’s multifaceted socio-environmental challenges enable ROOTS to identify major inter-related spheres of social, environmental, and cultural connectivity. Accordingly, ROOTS investigates these spheres in six main research areas, i.e. subclusters:

1. ROOTS of Socio-Environmental Hazards;
2. Dietary ROOTS: Domestication, Diet, and Diseases;
3. Knowledge ROOTS: Innovation, Cognition, and Technology;
4. Urban ROOTS: Urban Agency and Perception;
5. ROOTS of Inequalities: Social, Economic, and Environmental developments;
6. ROOTS of Conflicts: Competition and Conciliation.

Each subcluter applies interdisciplinary and theoretical approaches to address specific research questions and develop new research profiles towards topical foci, and in turn benefits from specific enquiries to other subclusters. Furthermore, in standing cross-sectional workgroups, the six subclusters jointly address overreaching themes, such as mobility and migration, resources and economy, and ideology and identity.