Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Human Prehistory and Early Civilization pt 2-3

This is a continuation of the first set of lectures. In these lectures, we do learn many times that the professor has had a classical education. But more important to the topic, we get the first episodes of herding animals and farming. These are treated as logical occurrences, rather than dramatic changes.

This delves into more of the "modern" prehistory. We get early europeans, Incas, Aztecs, early Chinese, etc. Some of the early societies built up huge, complex organizations. But often, something as simple as a climate change could lead it to all tumble down.

Since this is "prehistory" there is little in the way of written record. As such, a lot of what we "know" about the early societies is little more than guesswork. Perhaps some people had very advanced civilizations, yet fell to be totally unrecognized in the archeological record.

The professor follows a "5 paragraph essay" style for all his lectures. He tells us what he is going to tell us, he tells us, then he tells us what he told us. It makes the course slow moving. However, the content is quite interesting - even if it is ever-changing.

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