ANSO 107-01, Becoming Human: Archaeology and the Origins of Culture, Fall 2003

Abstract

This course is intended to be an introduction to the methods and theories of anthropological archaeology. This course will also explore current explanations and available data on the origins of culture from 7 million years ago until the beginnings of plant and animal domestication (approximately 10,000 years ago.) Most archaeologists can be classified as working on one of three major problems of human prehistory: (1) human origins, (2) origins of the domestication of plants and animals and (3) origins of states and empires. While this course focuses on problem area (1), you will be briefly introduced to the topics of agricultural origins and the development of rank and class societies in the last section of the course that will focus on the archaeology of the Southeastern United States. This southeastern region of the continental U.S. (where we find ourselves) not only witnessed the independent domestication of plants (which archaeologists have only recently been able to fully substantiate) but also the development of socially complex societies that built the mound structures many of you might be familiar with from this region.