NES 7710

Humans and the Ancient Mediterranean Environment

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2016-2017.

The Eastern Mediterranean is an ecologically diverse and varied landscape with a rich cultural heritage for studying long-term human-environmental interactions.  In this course we will explore how human activities such as mining, logging, water management, agriculture, and animal husbandry in antiquity impacted the area's environment, as well as how past pollution, disease, and sanitation affected human health.  We will investigate different environmental case studies spanning the last 10,000 years in the East Mediterranean, and their relationship to the area's modern environmental issues.  Particular emphasis will be made on examining how paleoecological, geomorphological, archaeological, and textual evidence may be used together to reconstruct past human-environmental interactions.  Students will also have the opportunity to explore their own topics of interest in Mediterranean environmental history.

When Offered Spring.

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