ANTH 1210 Climate Change and the Human Experience
This course is a broad survey of human biological and cultural evolution. It examines the relationships between humans and their environments, in other words, how climate has affected human experience and culture through time and around the globe. The course uses a holistic, anthropological perspective to examine how hunter-gatherers, agriculturalists, and industrial societies have tried to adapt to and control climate and food production through religion and technology. Global climate is currently changing at an unprecedented rate which is problematic as culture is conservative and resistant to change. Wild fluctuations in temperature and precipitation, catastrophic storms and melting ice caps present us with increasingly difficult and costly challenges. (3 lect.)
Major Topics
- Climate trends of the past two million years
- Paleontological evidence for the relationship between climate and human evolution
- Relationships between climate and human migration(s) out of Africa into Europe, Asia and the peopling of the Americas
- Relationships between climate and agricultural revolutions
- Relationships between climate and culture collapse
- Explanative theories for successful and failed cultural responses to climate change throughout time and from around the globe
- Climate change and disease
- Current climate trends
- Potential impacts of an responses to climate change and global warming in the modern world
Outcomes
In order to successfully complete this course, the student will:
1. Analyze the complex relationships between climate and human biology
2. Evaluate theories about what causes climate change
3. Describe and assess how climate and the environment shape the economic, political, religious, and technological structures of cultures
4. Analyze and discuss the impacts of climate change on diverse cultures and civilizations from different time periods around the globe
5. Compare and contrast various cultural responses to climate change and analyze why some succeeded while others failed
6. Analyze the complex diplomatic and military interplay between cultures and civilizations competing for the same finite resources