Some of Dr. Altaweel's previous research focused on understanding the relationship between social interactions with the environment using a complex system perspective. He has studied how human perceptions are shaped by and influence environmental change. Other research focused on developing remote sensing methods and spatial approaches to understanding landscape change in the present and past. Some of his funded research includes:

(i)  Investigating how people walk in ancient cities and decisions they make in choosing routes within an urban context, including factors that shape movement choices such as metabolism and walking abilities.

(ii) Studying how past landscape change affected human decision-making and how social decisions influenced land use in different ecological zones.

(iii) Understanding how modern Arctic societies are coping with environmental change as caused by climate and land use change.

(iv) Applying text mining approaches to understand how social perceptions are shaped by environmental change.

(v) Conducting archaeological investigations to determine the role of land use and climate change on past societies.

(vi) Publishing and salvaging archaeological materials and information from sites threatened or destroyed by looting in Iraq.

(vii) My recent research has also focused on urbanisation in the ancient Near East and how quantitative models can be applied to understand why cities and settlements arose or declined in certain regions.

(viii) A recent book project has focused on imperialism and how states embark on empire building through different decision dynamics based on political and historical factors. This work has looked at how empires transformed key social institutions, where population movement was also a critical element to such change.