Stone Age Europe

Catalog description

Europe’s history is widely studied, but in terms of years, the continent’s written record represents far less than 1% of the total time humans have lived there. In this course we explore the bulk of that vast (pre)history via the investigation of the Paleolithic (“Old Stone Age”) Mesolithic (“Middle Stone Age”) and Neolithic (“New Stone Age”). We begin with the first Homo erectus-like hominins who expanded into Europe as early as 1.7 million years ago, and examine the lifeways of European Neandertals and their presumed ancestors ca. 600,000 to 40,000 years ago. We then cover the arrival of our own species, Homo sapiens, around 54,000 years ago and explore interactions between them and the Neandertals. Around 20,000 years ago, the icy cold of the Last Glacial Maximum leads to the abandonment of northern Europe, while the end of the Last Ice Age ca. 11,700 BCE reforests the continent (bringing new challenges to the continent’s Mesolithic inhabitants). The rapid spread of domestication from the Near East (the Neolithic) follows shortly thereafter, and in the Middle Neolithic megalithic monuments are built across the continent.