Europe I: Prehistory

The course provides an overview of the highlights of European archaeology. The series is structured around important themes that are relevant across periods and geographic regions. Themes are illustrated by crucial case studies taken from across European Archaeology.

The course instills familiarity with the research history of European Archaeology, with the diversity of human societies from Pleistocene hunter-gatherers to historic urban states and with the breadth of human experience.

Assignments are geared towards training in data analysis and sound archaeological reasoning and provide a crucial preparation for the research design of the MA-thesis.

Key developments in European Prehistory

In this course key developments in Prehistoric Europe will be discussed, taking place between the 7th and the end of the 1st millennium BC. The emphasis is on how Prehistory shaped the modern world.

The focus is on agrarian communities. Themes that may be addressed include the spread of farming in Europe, the rise and history of ritual landscapes, the deep history of migration, Prehistoric religion and cosmology, invention and adaptation of metallurgy, Bronze Age and Iron Age “world systems”, ethnogenesis (Celts, Germans, Scythians), and the legacy of Prehistory in modern Europe.
 

Neolithisation in the Near East

The Neolithic (ca. 10,000-5,300 BC) is one of the most crucial periods in the history of the Near East, associated with major social, economic and material innovations and important changes in the archaeological record.
It is also a period that has emerged as a major research topic over the past two decades.

In this course you will study the current archaeological views on this period of early village formation.
 

Archaeology of the Crusades

This course explores various aspects of the ‘crusading phenomenon’ in the Mediterranean and the Near East, ranging from the Norman conquest of Sicily and southern Italy (1000-1130 C.E.) to the fall of Akko in the Holy Land (1291 C.E.), as well as some later long-term developments.

The aim is to address how we can study the Crusades from an archaeological perspective, and what the archaeological data can tell us about the nature of these events, and their impact on society.
 

Americas

This course explores the field of Mesoamerican Archaeology, focusing on the peoples and cultures of this region that includes modern day Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. We will explore the development of many cultures, states, and empires, including the Olmec of the Gulf coast, the city of Teotihuacan in central Mexico, the Maya in Central America and the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Aztec Empire that conquered much of Mexico.