ANTH 328

Environmental Archaeology

This course addresses climate history and long-term patterns of change in human adaptation throughout the past 130,000 years, a time span that saw important milestones in human evolution. Common sources of data for reconstructing ancient climate and environments (such as botanical, faunal, geological and isotopic approaches) will be considered to demonstrate how archaeologists study past human relationship with the natural environment. Other topics to be discussed include causes and consequences of past glaciations, past human diet, and conditions that fostered the inception of food production. The course concludes with an overview of environmental disasters, global warming and the impacts of colonialism and industrialization on the environment

Units: 3.0