12,000 Years of Farming: From Domestication to Globalization

Catalog description

12,000 years ago, humans began a profound transformation from foragers to farmers, thus initiating the complex, and arguably troubled, history of agriculture on our planet. This course uses case studies spanning many geographic, chronological, and cultural contexts, paying detailed attention to how humans, plants, animals, soils, and climate have interacted in agricultural landscapes in both the ancient and recent past. Students will examine the socio-economic, cultural, political, and environmental factors that impacted farming, considering topics such as how cultivation shaped early complex societies, the role of technological innovation, the destruction of landscape for agricultural ends, and the effects of climatic variability.