The Archaeology of Climate Change

Catalog description

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing humankind today and most of the public discourse on this topic focuses on the future. And yet, all of our experience with the natural world lies in the past. This course will delve into some of the issues that arise from contemplating climate change in a historical and human evolutionary perspective: what is humans’ natural environment? How many times did the climate change significantly during human history? Did climate determine the course of human evolution and/or social change? When did humans first begin to tinker with the environment? And finally: what solutions for the future can we glean from our collective historical experience? The course will use primary literature from the fields of archaeology, paleoanthropology, and paleoclimatology to guide students toward a better understanding of climate change at the human scale.