ANTH 2140 - Humans and the Environment
3 Credits
Introduces the complex relationship between humans and the environment. Students will analyze how changing paleo-climates shaped human evolution and explore the interdependence between humans and the environment today. Students will study a variety of contemporary and historical cultural groups in terms of their production, consumption, social organization, and worldview. Students will learn how successful adaptation to climate and geography, the conservation of species, and management of available resources have contributed to survival or collapse of societies in documented cases. Students will interpret what humanity can learn about sustainability from these cases and the empirical knowledge systems of traditional cultural groups.
Major Content Areas
Paleo-climates and human evolutionThe Neolithic transitions Contemporary and historical cases of adaptation and maladaptation Traditional and indigenous adaptive cultural practices Climate change and global inequalities today
Learning Outcomes
Articulate how changing paleo-climates shaped human evolution. Identify the locations of the first Neolithic societies and the environmental conditions that made the transition to agriculture possible. Summarize the consequences that agriculture and sedentary lifestyles have had for humanity and the environment. Describe how successful adaptation to climate and geography, the conservation of species, and management of available resources have contributed to the socio-cultural survival or collapse of a variety of cultural groups and societies. Describe how climate change reinforces existing social inequities and introduces others. Interpret what humanity can learn about sustainability from a variety of traditional and indigenous cultural practices.
Minnesota Transfer Curriculum (MNTC) Goals
10 - People/Environment 05 - Hist/Soc/Behav Sci
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