2020-21 Academic Catalog

"Never say that prehistory is not history." The late Fernand Braudel had it right. Over 99 percent of human history predates the written word, and this course examines one of the world's most diverse, yet unifying environments--the Mediterranean Sea--from the earliest populations around its shores to the emergence of the Classical world of the Greeks and Romans. Neanderthals and modern humans, the first artists and farmers, multiculturalism among Greeks, Phoenicians, Etruscans, and others... These are some of the topics to be covered as we study the precursors and roots of what would become "Western" civilization.