Universität Wien
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060060 SE Holocene to Anthropocene Eurasia (2020S)

Continuous assessment of course work

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 25 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

  • Friday 06.03. 09:00 - 11:00 Seminarraum 13 Franz-Klein-Gasse 1 4.OG
  • Friday 13.03. 09:00 - 11:00 Seminarraum 13 Franz-Klein-Gasse 1 4.OG
  • Friday 20.03. 09:00 - 11:00 Seminarraum 13 Franz-Klein-Gasse 1 4.OG
  • Friday 19.06. 09:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum 13 Franz-Klein-Gasse 1 4.OG
  • Friday 26.06. 09:00 - 16:00 Seminarraum 13 Franz-Klein-Gasse 1 4.OG

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

Debates about the extent and timings of human impacts in Eurasia (defined here as the European peninsula plus continental Asia) are heavily biased by a presentist (post-AD 1600) perspective on human demography, industrialization, and environmental degradation. This seminar course encourages advanced students to take the long view and consider a series of key definitional and thematic issues in relation to interdisciplinary datasets derived from traditional archaeology, palaeoclimatology, environmental science, bioanthropology, and aDNA analysis. The introductory material to the course will provide an outline of: the general deep-time topography of hominin expansions; the reversal of adaptation modes enabled by the emergence of enhanced faculativeness through technological innovation from 3.3 ma onwards (and, particularly, its acceleration in the so-called ‘Neolithic revolution’); the problematics of cause and effect in the natureculture equation (with a critical discussion of the contradictory meanings of the term ‘environment’); and the major issues involved in attempting an adequate agreed global geological marker for ‘Anthropocene’.

Assessment and permitted materials

Assessment: students will be expected to choose a defined, chronologically and regionally limited theme relating to humanenvironment interaction and show in presentation and through an essay assignment that they (i) are aware of the bases of knowledge claims involved and (ii) have insight into the research programmes that will develop knowledge in these areas.
Essay = 100% ordinarily to be submitted by 30th August 2020

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

Students will be graded on ‘exit velocity’ in terms of the quality of their submitted c 15 page essay (including references), reflected on in the light of critical comments and feedback from the module coordinator and their peers during the presenatation sessions.

Examination topics

Reading list

Relevant literature will be introduced in course materials

Association in the course directory

Last modified: Th 21.03.2024 00:10