ANTH 4077 is also offered in Spring 2025
ANTH 4077 is also offered in Fall 2023
ANTH 4077 is also offered in Fall 2022
Spring 2021 | ANTH 4077 Section 001: Neanderthals: Biology and Culture of Humanity's Nearest Relative (66314)
- Instructor(s)
- Class Component:
- Lecture
- Credits:
- 3 Credits
- Grading Basis:
- Student Option
- Instructor Consent:
- No Special Consent Required
- Instruction Mode:
- Completely Online
- Class Attributes:
Delivery Mode
Online Course
- Times and Locations:
- Enrollment Status:
Open (12 of 25 seats filled)
- Also Offered:
- Course Catalog Description:
- Paleontological/archaeological record. Students reconstruct behavioral similarities/differences between Neanderthals and modern humans. Why humans alone survived end of Pleistocene. prereq: 1001 or 3001 or 3002 or instr consent
- Class Description:
- Ever since the discovery of the first Neanderthal skull in Germany in 1856, debate has raged in science as in popular culture over the degree of humanity of Neanderthals, our closest prehistoric relatives. Were they shuffling, depraved cannibals, or intelligent and caring beings? Did they lack the qualities we define as uniquely human, such as language and the ability to produce art, or did they create the first symbolic objects, care for their wounded and their dead, and develop complex tool kits? In this course we will review the fossil, archaeological, and genetic evidence on the origins, adaptations, and ultimate fate of the Neanderthals. In addition, we will examine the shifting views on Neanderthals in relation to the changing intellectual and sociopolitical climate of the last 150 years. The course concludes by tackling the controversial and often emotional topic of whether Neanderthals died out due to environmental changes, or whether they were slaughtered into extinction by competing modern humans in what some have called the "Pleistocene Holocaust."
- Grading:
- 30% Reports/Papers
40% Reflection Papers
10% In-class Presentations
10% Class Participation
10% Other Evaluation
- Class Format:
- 20% Lecture
40% Discussion
30% Small Group Activities
10% Student Presentations
- Workload:
- 30 Pages Reading Per Week
40 Pages Writing Per Term
1 Paper(s)
1 Presentation(s)
- Textbooks:
- https://bookstores.umn.edu/course-lookup/66314/1213
- Instructor Supplied Information Last Updated:
- 15 April 2013
ClassInfo Links - Spring 2021 Anthropology Classes