Environmental Archaeology

Catalog description

Credits 3. 3 Lecture Hours. 0 Lab Hours. COURSE OVERVIEW. Explores the paleoecological context in which past humans interacted with the natural environment encompassing plants, animals and landscape. Introduces students to theories and methods relevant to studying past human-environment interactions. Outlines types of environmental data that survive in the archaeological record (geological, botanical, faunal, chemical), recovery and analytical methods, absolute chronology and inferences made based on these data. Develops long-term, global perspective on human-environment interactions provided by the fields of archaeology and earth science. TOPICS AND THEMES. The use of archaeological sites as paleoenvironmental archives, human impacts on ancient environments, Quaternary extinctions, long-term landscape evolution, plant and animal domestication, the Anthropocene and cultural collapse and resilience. Prerequisite: Graduate classification or approval of instructor.