Joseph Maran is professor of Prehistory and Early History at Heidelberg University, from which he also received his Ph.D. He finished his habilitation at Bonn University. Since 1994 he has been the director of the excavation of the German Archaeological Institute at the Mycenaean palatial center of Tiryns (Greece). He is a principal investigator of the Heidelberg Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” and of the Research Cluster “Political Space” of the German Archaeological Institute. Current research interests: Mediterranean connectivity in the 3rd and 2nd Millennia BCE, Interculturality and lifeworld change, Architecture and social practice, Material culture and social memory.