This course provides a global perspective on the origins and development of past societies across the world including the well-studied civilisations of Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, Mesoamerica, The Mediterranean, and the Indus Valley, empires and kingdoms of sub-Saharan Africa, chiefdoms societies of Polynesia, and many more. When and how did these societies emerge and how come some of them faded into the distant past?
We explore a different geographical region every week, each time setting the scene with information on climate, the environment, and human migration patterns at the end of the Pleistocene era as the world emerged from the last glacial phase of the ice age. This period was characterised by melting ice sheets, warming temperatures and dramatic sea level rises. This was a critical phase of human history with precursors to agricultural societies emerging in some regions including in southwest Asia as exemplified by the enigmatic site of Göbekli Tepe, Turkey. At the start of the Holocene era 11,700 years ago the climate warmed significantly and we see clear evidence for the domestication of a range of plants and animals. After existing as small, mobile, hunter-foragers societies for millions of years, human agricultural societies emerged. We ask: when and where did they appear, did they emerge independently in different regions, how did agriculture spread, and what impact did it have upon people and society?
The development of agriculture is a fundamental reason for why many societies began to aggregate into villages, towns and then cities. Agriculture enabled the production of large amounts of food, which could then be stored. People became sedentary. A food surplus enabled economic, cultural and technological innovations to occur, such as pottery production, large scale architecture and the development of irrigation. Hierarchically organised societies formed as management systems became more complex leading in some instances to state formation, territories and empires. As we explore the different geographical regions we encounter a range of belief systems, funerary practices, evidence of writing, languages, art, sophisticating trading networks, large-scale warfare, and societal collapse.
World Archaeology is a fast-moving and inspiring subject that explores the richness of past human cultural diversity. The course will provide you with an array of information on the latest archaeological discoveries from around the world and on the newest scientific advances being applied in areas such as genetics, isotopes, radiometric dating, and satellite imagery analyses. However, many questions and mysteries still remain, which we will discuss each week. We also engage in themes such as the legacy of imperialism, colonialism, and slavery, the repatriation of human remains and material culture, environmental change, societal collapse, and consider how appreciation of our rich and diverse cultural past can be a source of hope for humanity in the future.