Becoming Human: A Biocultural Exploration of the Human Experience

3 units

Humanity, before the advent of agriculture and industrialization, evolved a wide range of behavioral adaptations and patterns that enabled them to survive as hunter-gatherers in diverse environments with complex cultural systems. Using a broad evolutionary framework, this course will explore these behaviors (e.g., hunting, control of fire, toolmaking, representational art, altruism, gender roles, language, religion) to examine what it means to be human through a biocultural lens. We will take a comparative approach to address these topics by examining our earliest ancestors (both nonhuman primates and early hominins) as well as modern human societies to better understand how we got where we are today.