Old World Prehistory

The first part of the course reviews the evidence for biological and cultural evolution as well as environmental changes from Old World that documents the origin of humanity. It also examines the growing of cultural complexity, the evolution of food production and the beginning of permanent human settlement. Examples are drawn from many regions of the Old World to show commonalities and differences in growth towards cultural complexity. The last part of the course deals with the development of state level societies and comparative civilizations using case studies, and archaeological evidence from Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.