As the successor to the Association for national archaeological excavations (AFAN) created in 1973, INRAP benefits from nearly thirty years of experience in the field. It brings together almost 50% of the archaeologists working in the French territory and counts in its ranks numerous high level researchers, including over a hundred PhDs and about 300 graduates with Masters or equivalent degrees.

The diversity of its teams enables INRAP to deploy the whole range of skills of modern archaeological research. The Institute includes specialists in all archaeological periods – Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages, Antiquity, Middle Ages, Modern Times, the contemporary epoch – as well as ceramologists, numismatists (coins) and topographers, a broad range of geo-archaeologists, sedimentologists, anthropologists, palynologists (pollens), carpologists (seeds), anthracologists (charcoals), archaeo-zoologists, malacologists (molluscs), and more generally, specialists in the history of climate and landscape (palaeo-environment). These researchers rely in turn on a large range of techniques stemming from the natural sciences, in particular dating methods (carbon 14, thermoluminscence, dendrochronology…).