Johannes Müller (born 29.11.1960) has held the position of professor (C4) for Prehistoric Archaeology (Prehistory) and director of the institute in Kiel, since December 2004. He studied in Freiburg and Edinburgh, and obtained his Master's degree and doctorate in Freiburg. After completing a DAI-travel grant he was academic assistant at the FU in Berlin, where he obtained his habilitation, whereupon he held teaching positions in both Freiburg and Cologne. In 2000, Johannes Müller was appointed professor (C3) for Pre- and Protohistoric Archaeology in Bamberg and later became head of Bamberg's Institute for Archaeologie and Heritage Studies. Core research topics: Socialarchaeology; Settlement Archaeology; Landscape Archaeology. Johannes Müller is initiator and spokesman of the Graduate School"Human Development in Landscapes" (DFG-Initiative of Excellence) and coordinator of the DFG's Priority Program “Early Monumentality and Social Differentiation”. He is speaker of the DFG Collaborative Research Center "Scales of Transformation: Human-Environment Interaction of Prehistoric and Archaic Societies" (SFB 1266). Field research was and is being conducted in Germany, Poland, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Ukraine and Moldavia. Excavation projects range from megalithic tombs, Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements to Eastern European settlement mounds and Nordpontic Chalcolithic mega-sites. Ethnoarchaeological reserach was conducted on Sumba, Nagaland and the South Ethopia.

Prehistoric archaeology in Kiel focuses on European prehistory. While the teaching and training encompass all aspects from the palaeolithic to the end of the pre-Christian Iron Ages, primary research focus is on the Neolithic, Bronze Age and the Hallstatt period. Contentual emphasis is formed by landscape and social archaeology. In different analyses palaeoclimatic, palaeoecological and palaeoeconomical reconstructions are sought, which document the interlinkage between humans and their environment. The main concept is described by the Graduate School „Human Development in Landscapes“, for which the professorship was the initiator. Based on corresponding studies social archaeological concepts serve to reconstruct social inequality in early societies. Basic patterns of human behaviour are ascertained through culture anthropological perspective, which reconstruction is crucial for overcoming the problems of our modern world.