For ninety-five percent of our evolutionary history humans lived as hunters and gatherers. Today, a tiny fraction of the World's population practices this form of ecology and it will soon disappear. Topics include: human global settlement and physical adaptations to varying climates; hunter-gatherer life histories, population demographics, diet and disease; the late Pleistocene-Holocene archaeology of hunters and gatherers based on case studies from Australasia, Africa and the Americans; hunter gatherer land use, resource exploitation and manipulation of the environment: and the question of mega faunal extinctions.


Note:This course will not be offered in 2011 or 2012. For advice on an appropriate alternative course please contact the School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences