Ancient World Civilizations

Catalog description

Course traces rise of world's first major civilizations from emergence of Homo sapiens to the advent of written history. The emergence of food production, social inequality, cities and conquest states in each world area will be examined, as will the major anthropological theories devised to explain them. Emphasized is diversity of world civilizations, the variety of paths to civilization taken around the globe, and especially "non-western" civilizations of sub-Saharan Africa, the Far East and the Americas.