The origin of civilization
(CD + Book)

48 half-hour lectures presented in four parts with a separate lecture transcript and guidebook for each part.

In four containers (19 cm.).

Compact discs and book.

Includes bibliographical references in course guidebooks.

Taught by Professor Scott MacEachern, Bowdoin College.

Around 10,000 years ago, the small group of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers that had walked the earth for millennia gave way to increasingly complex Neolithic villages of agricultural producers. Around 4,000-5,000 years later, people had gathered in urban settings, established laws, and developed cultural and political systems. This remarkable change took place in Mesopotamia, on the North China plain, in the Indus Valley, in the Nile Valley, on Aegean islands, in Africa, and in America. What motivated these new forms of culture and social and political complexity? Why did they appear where they did? This course brings together findings from both archaeological and anthropological scholarship to answer these questions and to deepen our understanding of the first human states and civilizations.