The Commission for General and Comparative Archaeology (KAVA) was founded in Bonn on the DAI’s 150th anniversary in 1979. It was renamed the Commission for Archaeology of Non-European Cultures (KAAK) in 2005. In addition to its base in Bonn the KAAK has a field office in Ulaanbaatar.
As its name states, the KAAK’s area of interest lies outside the boundaries of the ancient Mediterranean world, instead covering nearly all the continents – currently it operates in South America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. Depending on the region, its investigations go far back into early human history (100,000 years before present) and continue to the early modern era.
The KAAK’s work is also of special significance for German archaeology, as its research fields often have no equivalents in Germany or the disciplines have been lost through cuts. The KAAK therefore additionally has an important function in education.
Ulambayar Erdenebat (centre, National University of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia) pays a visit to the KAAK (Photo: DAI KAAK) 
Leif Steguweit (Uni Erlangen), Jacira Nhatsave, Sheila Machava and Decio Muianga (Unversidad Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo), Christoph Grützner (Uni Jena), Gregor Bader (Uni Tübingen), Jörg Linstädter (DAI) (from left to right) (Photo: Jörg Linstädter, DAI) 
Markus Reindel, head of the South America unit of the KAAK, with his long-time Peruvian collaborator Johny Isla in Nasca–Palpa (Photo: DAI KAAK) 
Andreas Reinecke, head of the South-East Asia unit of the KAAK, visiting the museum of Yen Bai, Vietnam (Photo: Nicole Kehrer, DAI) 
Heiko Prümers, specialist for South America and his collaborators Carla Jaimes Betancourt (Bolivia) and María Fernanda Ugalde Mora (Ecuador) (Photo: Erlan Vargas) 
Markus Reindel (left), head of the South America unit of the KAAK, with his collaborator Oscar Neill Cruz in Honduras (Photo: DAI KAAK) 
Andreas Reinecke, head of the South-East Asia unit of the KAAK, with a Vietnamese colleague in the repository of the national history museum in Hanoi (Photo: Nicole Kehrer, DAI) 
Hans-Georg Hüttel, for many years the director of the field office at Ulaanbaatar, was named a foreign member of Mongolian Academy of Sciences in 2012 (Photo: DAI KAAK) 
Christina Franken, director of the Ulaanbaatar field office, with Mongolian cooperation partners (Photo: DAI KAAK) 
Meeting at the LVR Bonn about archaeological site databases and impact assessments: Lisa Ehlers (DAI), Rosemary Andrade and Temahlubi Dudu Nkambule (Eswatini National Trust Commission) and Erich Claßen (Head of the LVR Office for the Preservation of Natural Monuments in the Rhineland) (v.l.n.r.) (Photo: Jörg Linstädter, DAI) 
Excavation team on the Solomon Islands together with the local chief (middle) (Photo: DAI KAAK) 
Johannes Moser and his local partner Lawrence Kiko, Director National Museum, on the Solomon Islands (Photo: DAI KAAK) 
The international excavation team together with the head of the project Burkard Vogt (left) on the Easter Island (Photo: DAI KAAK) 
Joint visit to the Royal Museums in Brussels. From left to right: Dr. Yang Yong (Archaeological Institute at the Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing), Dr. Fu Xia from Nanning (Guangxi Province), Dr. Andreas Reinecke (KAAK), and Bowi Quibus in charge of the museums’ Indian and South-East Asian collection (Photo: DAI KAAK) 
Oscar Neill Cruz, head of the archaeology department at the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, on a visit to the KAAK (Photo: DAI KAAK) 
Jörg Linstädter (left) with his colleague Decio Muianga (Universidad Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo) (Photo: Jörg Linstädter, DAI)