GEOG 6425 - Archaeology and Paleoecology of the Arid West

During the late Pleistocene and Holocene, the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau experienced multiple periods of climate change and landscape evolution. Wetlands expanded and contracted, plant compositions and distributions changed, and range shifts and local extinctions in fauna occurred. For humans, these climate-driven environmental changes significantly impacted resource structure and availability. This class will use concepts drawn from evolutionary ecology to examine how people in the past interacted with the landscapes around them. This will allow us to understand why the archaeological record looks the way it does and to understand it in the context of the corresponding paleoecological record/s. This class will enable students to have a full appreciation of how complex the past can be and how it is worth understanding in terms of today.