Class: Anthropology 151 – Emerging Humanity
Class meets: Kuykendall Room 307 (Tuesday and Thursday
1:30-2:45)
Professor: Dr Brett Shepardson
Office Hours: Dean Hall 203 (Tuesday and Thursday 9:00am –
noon)
Contact: bleif@hawaii.edu
Class Website: http://www.terevaka.net/anth151/
In Anthropology 151, we will use
an anthropological perspective to learn about human history before ca. AD
1500. This course will emphasize the
relationship between our biology, our behavior, and our surrounding environment
over the course of prehistory. We begin
with a brief exploration of the fossil remains of human ancestors from millions
of years ago. And eventually, we trace
the last 35,000 years of human history from foragers and hunters to the
emergence of complex civilizations. Some
topics we will explore include the origins of plant and animal domestication,
the origins of the world’s earliest cities, and the political and ecological
consequences of human impact on the natural environment.
Course goals include:
-
Analyzing how
anthropologists investigate the human past
-
Understanding the
history of humans from our earliest ancestors
-
Learning about the
archaeological enterprise
-
Examining how ancient
civilizations emerge
-
Developing an
anthropological perspective on how humans adapt to their changing environments
Course Format and Requirements
Our course combines lectures,
discussion, and in-class lab sections.
We use sections from a series of videos to illustrate and reinforce
topics in readings and lectures. Exam
questions draw on material from the textbook.
Students can schedule alternative viewing sessions for videos at the
Our course has one required
textbook: World Prehistory: a Brief
Introduction, (7th Edition) by Brian Fagan (2008; Pearson
Prentice Hall).