The department’s research covers a number of fields within the archaeology of the Viking Age, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Topics include: globalisation and regionality; buildings and settlements (such as houses, castles, monasteries and villages); religious and cultural change in the Viking and early Middle Ages; international connections in the Viking Age; and a broad spectrum of technology, such as the production of salt, paper, ceramics and glass, as well as minting. Annual seminar excavations are closely linked to research. Consequently, for a number of years the excavations took place at monasteries, castles, moated sites and production sites (e.g. the Franciscan Friary in Horsens; the Cistercian Abbey of Øm); SilkeborgCastle;  SkjernCastle; salt production sites on the island of Læsø; and, from 2007, moated sites near Nørre Vosborg). 

The department uses a wide range of methodologies: from the study of physical appearances and the symbolic and practical uses of monastic buildings, farm houses and Viking fortresses, to interdisciplinary studies of the conversion and of Romanesque stone sculpture in an art-historical and iconographical light; and from historical figures to the technology and socio-economic background of various artefact types.

The research may be summed up under three main research themes: