Origins
Guillermo Algaze
Syllabus: CAT1_FA11_Algaze_Syllabus.pdf
CAT 1 focuses on the key question: "How did human beings come to have culture, art and technology?" The course is centered on the human capacity for symbolic representation as it manifests itself in each of these domains. It presents a global historical overview of the general principles and patterns of past human development, and focuses particular attention on the causes and consequences of cultural variations spanning the last 50,000 years of human prehistory and history. The course explores the ways in which forces such as language, art, technology, sedentism, food production, cities, and writing helped shape the natural and created environments of human societies.
