This course will investigate geological, biological and archaeological evidence of environmental change. We will examine the processes that have driven and will drive environmental change and how past societies have shaped and responded to these changes. The emphasis is on the current interglacial period, or Holocene, and how shifts in population and technologies have affected human-environment interactions. As language of the Holocene gives way, for many, to that the Anthropocene, the implications of environmental change for present and future human societies will be our concluding concern.
This course will investigate geological, biological and archaeological evidence of environmental change. We will examine the processes that have driven and will drive environmental change and how past societies have shaped and responded to these changes. The emphasis is on the current interglacial period, or Holocene, and how shifts in population and technologies have affected human-environment interactions. As language of the Holocene gives way, for many, to that the Anthropocene, the implications of environmental change for present and future human societies will be our concluding concern.
